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SHAPES OF CLAY 



BY 



AMBROSE BIERCE 

AUTHOR OF "IN THE MIDST OF LIFE," " CAN SUCH THINGS BE?' 
"BLACK BEETLES IN AMBER," AND "FANTASTIC FABLES " 



W. E. WOOD, Publisher 

SAN FRANCISCO 
1903 



d 1903 

CLASS |LV>fo No. 



Copyright 

1903 

By Ambrose Bierce 



THE MURDOCK PRESS 
SAN FRANCISCO 



-f* 



z> 



St 



DEDICATION 



WITH PRIDE IN THEIR WORK, FAITH IN THEIR FUTURE 
AND AFFECTION FOR THEMSELVES, AN OLD WRITER 
DEDICATES THIS BOOK TO HIS YOUNG FRIENDS AND 
PUPILS, GEORGE STERLING AND HERMAN SCHEFFAUER. 

A. B. 



PREFACE. 



Some small part of this book being personally cen- 
sorious, and in that part the names of real persons 
being used without their assent, it seems fit that a few 
words be said of the matter in sober prose. What it 
seems well to say I have already said with sufficient 
clarity in the preface of another book, somewhat allied 
to this by that feature of its character. I quote from 
"Black Beetles in Amber :" 

"Many of the verses in this book are republished, 
with considerable alterations, from various newspapers. 
Of my motives in writing and in now republishing I 
do not care to make either defence or explanation, ex- 
cept with reference to those who since my first censure 
of them have passed away. To one having only a 
reader's interest in the matter it may easily seem that 
the verses relating to those might properly have been 
omitted from this collection. But if these pieces, or 
indeed, if any considerable part of my work in litera- 
ture, have the intrinsic worth which by this attempt 
to preserve some of it I have assumed, their permanent 



vi PREFACE. 

suppression is impossible, and it is only a question of 
when and by whom they will be republished. Some 
one will surely search them out and put them in circu- 
lation. 

"I conceive it the right of an author to have his 
fugitive work collected in his lifetime ; and this seems 
to me especially true of one whose work, necessarily 
engendering animosities, is peculiarly exposed to chal- 
lenge as unjust. That is a charge that can best be 
examined before time has effaced the evidence. For 
the death of a man of whom I have written what I may 
venture to think worthy to live I am no way responsi- 
ble ; and however sincerely I may regret it, I can hardly 
consent that it shall affect my literary fortunes. 
If the satirist who does not accept the remarkable doc- 
trine that, while condemning the sin he should spare 
the sinner, were bound to let the life of his work be 
coterminous with that of his subject his were a lot of 
peculiar hardship. 

"Persuaded of the validity of all this I have not hesi- 
tated to reprint even certain 'epitaphs' which, once of 
the living, are now of the dead, as all the others must 
eventually be. The objection inheres in all forms of 
applied satire — my understanding of whose laws and 
liberties is at least derived from reverent study of the 



PREFACE. vii 

masters. That in respect of matters herein mentioned 
I have but followed their practice can be shown by 
abundant instance and example." 

In arranging these verses for publication I have 
thought it needless to classify them according to char- 
acter, as "Serious," "Comic," "Sentimental," "Satiri- 
cal," and so forth. I do the reader the honor to think 
that he will readily discern the nature of what he is 
reading; and I entertain the hope that his mood will 
accommodate itself without disappointment to that of 
his author. 

Ambrose Bierce. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE PASSING SHOW I 

ELIXIR VITjE 5 

CONVALESCENT 7 

AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS 9 

NOVUM ORGANUM 12 

GEOTHEOS 13 

YORICK IS 

A VISION OF DOOM 17 

POLITICS 21 

POESY 22 

IN DEFENSE 23 

AN INVOCATION 25 

RELIGION 3° 

A MORNING FANCY 3 1 

VISIONS OF SIN 33 

THE TOWN OF D^E 35 

AN ANARCHIST 41 

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE A 2 

ARMA VIRUMQUE 45 

ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY 46 

A DEMAND 4$ 

THE WEATHER WIGHT 5 1 

T. A. H 56 

MY MONUMENT 57 

MAD 58 

HOSPITALITY 60 

FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC 6l 

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS 63 

MAGNANIMITY 65 

TO HER 66 

TO A SUMMER POET &7 

ARTHUR MCEWEN 69 



x CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHARLES AND PETER 70 

CONTEMPLATION 72 

CREATION 73 

BUSINESS 74 

A POSSIBILITY 75 

TO A CENSOR 76 

THE HESITATING VETERAN 79 

A YEAR'S CASUALTIES 82 

INSPIRATION 83 

TO-DAY 84 

AN ALIBI 86 

REBUKE 93 

J. F. B 94 

THE DYING STATESMAN 95 

THE DEATH OF GRANT 96 

THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED 98 

LAUS LUCIS 103 

NANINE 104 

TECHNOLOGY 105 

A REPLY TO A LETTER 107 

TO OSCAR WILDE 110 

PRAYER . . . Ill 

A "BORN LEADER OF MEN" 112 

TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE 1 13 

AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS 1 15 

BY A DEFEATED LITIGANT 117 

AN EPITAPH Il8 

the politician 1 19 

an inscription 120 

from virginia to paris 121 

a "mute inglorious milton" 122 

the free trader's lament 123 

subterranean phantasies 125 

in memoriam 128 

the statesmen 131 

the brothers 134 

the cynic's bequest 135 

corrected news 143 

an explanation 144 

JUSTICE 145 

MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY I46 

TO MY LAUNDRESS 151 






CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

FAME 152 

OMNES VANITAS 154 

ASPIRATION 155 

DEMOCRACY I56 

THE NEW "ULALUME" 157 

CONSOLATION 158 

FATE 159 

PHILOSOPHER BIM M l60 

REMINDED l62 

SALVINI IN AMERICA 164 

ANOTHER WAY . l66 

ART 167 

AN ENEMY TO LAW AND ORDER l68 

TO ONE ACROSS THE WAY 169 

THE DEBTOR ABROAD 170 

FORESIGHT 171 

A FAIR DIVISION 172 

GENESIS 173 

LIBERTY 174 

THE PASSING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD 175 

TO MAUDE 178 

THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE 179 

STONEMAN IN HEAVEN l8o 

THE SCURRIL PRESS l8l 

STANLEY 184 

ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX l86 

THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A COIN 187 

A LACKING FACTOR l88 

THE ROYAL JESTER 189 

A CAREER IN LETTERS 193 

THE FOLLOWING PAIR 195 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1 96 

VANISHED AT COCK-CROW 197 

THE UNPARDONABLE SIN 198 

INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT 200 

TEMPORA MUTANTUR 202 

CONTENTMENT 204 

THE NEW ENOCH 206 

DISAVOWAL 209 

AN AVERAGE 210 

WOMAN 211 

INCURABLE 212 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

THE PUN 213 

a partisan's protest 215 

TO NANINE 2l6 

VICE VERSA 217 

A BLACK-LIST 2l8 

A BEQUEST TO MUSIC 2IO, 

AUTHORITY 220 

THE PSORIAD 221 

ONEIROMANCY 225 

PEACE 226 

thanksgiving 22j 

l'audace 230 

the god's view-point 23i 

the ^esthetes 235 

july fourth 236 

with mine own petard 237 

constancy 239 

sires and sons 241 

a challenge 242 

two shows 244 

a poet's hope 246 

the woman and the devil 249 

two rogues 250 

BEECHER 252 

NOT GUILTY 253 

PRESENTIMENT 254 

A STUDY IN GRAY 255 

A PARADOX 257 

FOR MERIT 258 

A BIT OF SCIENCE 259 

THE TABLES TURNED 260 

TO A DEJECTED POET 26l 

A FOOL 262 

THE HUMORIST 264 

MONTEFIORE 265 

A WARNING 266 

DISCRETION 267 

AN EXILE 268 

THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT 269 

PSYCHOGRAPHS 270 

TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST 271 

FOR WOUNDS 273 



CONTENTS. xiii 

PAGE 

election day 274 

the militiaman 276 

a\ literary method , 277 

a welcome 278 

a serenade 279 

the wise and good 280 

the lost colonel 282 

FOR TAT 285 

A DILEMMA 286 

METEMPSYCHOSIS 288 

THE SAINT AND THE MONK 289 

THE OPPOSING SEX 29I 

A WHIPPER-IN 292 

JUDGMENT 294 

THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN 295 

IN HIGH LIFE 298 

A BUBBLE 299 

A RENDEZVOUS 3 01 

FRANCINE 3°2 

AN EXAMPLE 3°3 

REVENGE 3°4 

THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT 3°6 

IN CONTUMACIAM 3°7 

RE-EDIFIED 3°8 

A BULLETIN 3°9 

FROM THE MINUTES 3 10 

WOMAN IN POLITICS 3 12 

TO AN ASPIRANT 314 

A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE 3 X 5 

A BUILDER 3 J 8 

AN AUGURY 3 l 9 

LUSUS POLITICUS 320 

BEREAVEMENT 3 2 3 

AN INSCRIPTION 3 2 5 

A PICKBRAIN 326 

CONVALESCENT 3 2 7 

THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR 3 2 8 

DETECTED 330 

BIMETALISM 331 

THE RICH TESTATOR 333 

TWO METHODS 334 

FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE 335 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

AN IMPOSTER 2>2>7 

UNEXPOUNDED 338 

FRANCE 339 

THE EASTERN QUESTION 340 

A GUEST 341 

A FALSE PROPHECY 342 

TWO TYPES 343 

SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS 344 

A HYMN OF THE MANY 348 

ONE MORNING 349 

AN ERROR 350 

AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT" 351 

THE KING OF BORES 353 

HISTORY 354 

THE HERMIT 355 

TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON 357 

THE YEARLY LIE 358 

CO-OPERATION 360 

AN APOLOGUE 361 

DIAGNOSIS 362 

FALLEN 363 

DIES IR^E 364 

THE DAY OF WRATH 365 

ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION 372 

SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS 373 

IN THE BINNACLE 374 

HUMILITY 375 

ONE PRESIDENT 3j6 

THE BRIDE 3JJ 

STRAINED RELATIONS 378 

THE MAN BORN BLIND 379 

A NIGHTMARE 382 

A WET SEASON 383 

THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS 385 

KMC FABULA DOCET 388 

EXONERATION 389 

AZRAEL 390 

AGAIN 392 

HOMO PODUNKENSIS 394 

A SOCIAL CALL 395 



SHAPES OF CLAY 



THE PASSING SHOW. 
I. 

I know not if it was a dream. I viewed 
A city where the restless multitude, 

Between the eastern and the western deep 
Had reared gigantic fabrics, strong and rude. 

Colossal palaces crowned every height; 
Towers from valleys climbed into the light; 

O'er dwellings at their feet, great golden domes 
Hung in the blue, barbarically bright. 

But now, new-glimmering to-east, the day 
Touched the black masses with a grace of gray, 

Dim spires of temples to the nation's God 
Studding high spaces of the wide survey. 

Well did the roofs their solemn secret keep 
Of life and death stayed by the truce of sleep, 

Yet whispered of an hour when sleepers wake, 
The fool to hope afresh, the wise to weep. 

The gardens greened upon the builded hills 
Above the tethered thunders of the mills 

With sleeping wheels unstirred to service yet 
By the tamed torrents and the quickened rills. 



THE PASSING SHOW. 

A hewn acclivity, reprieved a space, 
Looked on the builder's blocks about his base 

And bared his wounded breast in sign to say : 
" Strike ! 't is my destiny to lodge your race. 

" 'T was but a breath ago the mammorh browsed 
Upon my slopes, and in my caves I housed 
Your shaggy fathers in their nakedness, 
While on their foeman's offal they caroused." 

Ships from afar afforested the bay. 

Within their huge and chambered bodies lay 

The wealth of continents ; and merrily sailed 
The hardy argosies to far Cathay. 

Beside the city of the living spread — 
Strange fellowship ! — the city of the dead ; 

And much I wondered what its humble folk, 
To see how bravely they were housed, had said. 

Noting how firm their habitations stood, 
Broad-based and free of perishable wood — 

How deep in granite and how high in brass 
The names were wrought of eminent and good, 

I said : " When gold or power is their aim, 
The smile of beauty or the wage of shame, 

Men dwell in cities ; to this place they fare 
When they would conquer an abiding fame." 



THE PASSING SHOW. 

From the red East the sun — a solemn rite — 
Crowned with a flame the cross upon a height 

Above the dead ; and then with all his strength 
Struck the great city all aroar with light ! 



II. 



I know not if it was a dream. I came 

Unto a land where something seemed the same 

That I had known as 't were but yesterday, 
But what it was I could not rightly name. 

It was a strange and melancholy land, 
Silent and desolate. On either hand 

Lay waters of a sea that seemed as dead, 
And dead above it seemed the hills to stand. 

Grayed all with age, those lonely hills — ah me, 
How worn and weary they appeared to be ! 

Between their feet long dusty fissures clove 
The plain in aimless windings to the sea. 

One hill there was which, parted from the rest, 
Stood where the eastern water curved a-west. 

Silent and passionless it stood. I thought 
I saw a scar upon its giant breast. 



THE PASSING SHOW. 

The sun with sullen and portentous gleam 
Hung like a menace on the sea's extreme; 

Nor the dead waters, nor the far, bleak bars 
Of cloud were conscious of his failing beam. 

It was a dismal and a dreadful sight, 
That desert in its cold, uncanny light; 
No soul but I alone to mark the fear 
And imminence of everlasting night ! 

All presages and prophecies of doom 
Glimmered and babbled in the ghastly gloom, 

And in the midst of that accursed scene 
A wolf sat howling on a broken tomb. 



ELIXIR VIT2E. 



ELIXIR VITiE. 

Of life's elixir I had writ, when sleep 

(Pray Heaven it spared him who the writing read!) 

Settled upon my senses with so deep 

A stupefaction that men thought me dead. 

The centuries stole by with noiseless tread, 

Like spectres in the twilight of my dream ; 

I saw mankind in dim procession sweep 

Through life, oblivion at each extreme. 

Meanwhile my beard, like Barbarossa's growing, 

Loaded my lap and o'er my knees was flowing. 

The generations came with dance and song, 

And each observed me curiously there. 

Some asked : " Who was he ? " Others in the throng 

Replied : " A wicked monk who slept at prayer." 

Some said I was a saint, and some a bear — 

These all were women. So the young and gay, 

Visibly wrinkling as they fared along, 

Doddered at last on failing limbs away ; 

Though some, their footing in my beard entangled, 

Fell into its abysses and were strangled. 



ELIXIR VITM. 

At last a generation came that walked 
More slowly forward to the common tomb, 
Then altogether stopped. The women talked 
Excitedly ; the men, with eyes agloom 
Looked darkly on them with a look of doom ; 
And one cried out : " We are immortal now — 
How need we these ? " And a dread figure stalked, 
Silent, with gleaming axe and shrouded brow, 
And all men cried : " Decapitate the women, 
Or soon there '11 be no room to stand or swim in ! " 

So (in my dream) each lovely head was chopped 
From its fair shoulders, and but men alone 
Were left in all the world. Birth being stopped, 
Enough of room remained in every zone, 
And Peace ascended Woman's vacant throne. 
Thus, life's elixir being found (the quacks 
Their bread-and-butter in it gladly sopped) 
'T was made worth having by the headsman's axe. 
Seeing which, I gave myself a hearty shaking, 
And crumbled all to powder in the waking. 



CONVALESCENT. 



CONVALESCENT. 

What ! " Out of danger ? " Can the slighted Dame 

Or canting Pharisee no more defame? 

Will Treachery caress my hand no more, 

Nor Hatred lie alurk about my door? — 

Ingratitude, with benefits dismissed, 

Not close the loaded palm to make a fist? 

Will Envy henceforth not retaliate 

For virtues it were vain to emulate ? 

Will Ignorance my knowledge fail to scout, 

Not understanding what 't is all about, 

Yet feeling in its light so mean and small 

That all his little soul is turned to gall? 

What ! " Out of danger ? " Jealousy disarmed ? 
Greed from exaction magically charmed? 
Ambition stayed from trampling whom it meets, 
Like horses fugitive in crowded streets? 
The Bigot, with his candle, book and bell, 
Tongue-tied, unlunged and paralyzed as well? 
The Critic righteously to justice haled, 
His own ear to the post securely nailed — 
What most he dreads unable to inflict, 



CONVALESCENT. 

And powerless to hawk the faults he 's picked ? 

The liar choked upon his choicest lie, 

And impotent alike to villify 

Or flatter for the gold of thrifty men 

Who hate his person but employ his pen — 

Who love and loathe, respectively, the dirt 

Belonging to his character and shirt? 

What ! " Out of danger ? " — Nature's minions all, 
Like hounds returning to the huntsman's call, 
Obedient to the unwelcome note 
That stays them from the quarry's bursting throat ? — 
Famine and Pestilence and Earthquake dire, 
Torrent and Tempest, Lightning, Frost and Fire, 
The soulless Tiger and the mindless Snake, 
The noxious Insect from the stagnant lake 
(Automaton malevolences wrought 
Out of the substance of Creative Thought) — 
These from their immemorial prey restrained, 
Their fury baffled and their power chained? 

I 'm safe? Is that what the physician said? 
What ! " Out of danger? " Then, by Heaven, I 'm 
dead! 



AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS. 



AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS. 

T was a Venerable Person, whom I met one Sunday 
morning, 

All appareled as a prophet of a melancholy sect ; 
And in a Jeremaid of objurgatory warning 

He lifted up his jodel to the following effect : 

" O ye sanguinary statesmen, intermit your verbal 
tussles ! 

O ye editors and orators, consent to hear my lay ! 
Rest a little while the digital and maxillary muscles 

And attend to what a Venerable Person has to say. 

" Cease your writing, cease your shouting, cease your 
wild unearthly lying ; 
Cease to bandy such expressions as are never, never 
found 
In the letter of a lover ; cease " exposing " and " re- 
plying "— 
Let there be abated fury and a decrement of sound. 

" For to-morrow will be Monday and the fifth day of 
November — 
Only day of opportunity before the final rush. 



io AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS. 

Carpe diem ! go conciliate each person who 's a mem- 
ber 
Of the other party — do it while you can without a 
blush. 

" Lo ! the time is close upon you when the madness of 
the season 
Having howled itself to silence, like a Minnesota 
'clone, 
Will at last be superseded by the still, small voice of 
reason, 
When the whelpage of your folly you would will- 
ingly disown. 

" Ah, 't is mournful to consider what remorses will be 
thronging, 
With a consciousness of having been so ghastly 
indiscreet, 
When by accident untoward two ex-gentlemen be- 
longing 
To the opposite political denominations meet ! 

" Yes, 't is melancholy, truly, to forecast the fierce, 
unruly 
Supersurging of their blushes, like the flushes upon 
high 
When Aurora Borealis lights her circumpolar palace 
And in customary manner sets her banner in the sky. 



AT THE CLOSE OF THE CANVASS. u 

" Each will think : ' This falsifier knows that I too 
am a liar. 
Curse him for a son of Satan, all unholily compound ! 
Curse my leader for another ! Curse that pelican, my 
mother ! 
Would to God that I when little in my victual had 
been drowned ! ' " 

Then that Venerable Person went away without re- 
turning 
And, the madness of the season having also taken 
flight, 
All the people soon were blushing like the skies to 
crimson burning 
When Aurora Borealis fires her premises by night. 



12 NOVUM ORGANUM. 



NOVUM ORGANUM. 

In Bacon see the culminating prime 
Of Anglo-Saxon intellect and crime. 
He dies and Nature, settling his affairs, 
Parts his endowments among us, his heirs 
To every one a pinch of brain for seed, 
And, to develop it, a pinch of greed. 
Each thrifty heir, to make the gift suffice, 
Buries the talent to manure the vice. 



GEOTHEOS. 13 



GEOTHEOS. 

As sweet as the look of a lover 
Saluting the eyes of a maid, 
That blossom to blue as the maid 

Is ablush to the glances above her, 
The sunshine is gilding the glade 
And lifting the lark out of shade. 

Sing therefore high praises, and therefore 
Sing songs that are ancient as gold, 
Of Earth in her garments of gold ; 

Nor ask of their meaning, nor wherefore 
They charm as of yore, for behold ! 
The Earth is as fair as of old. 

Sing songs of the pride of the mountains, 
And songs of the strength of the seas, 
And the fountains that fall to the seas 

From the hands of the hills, and the fountains 
That shine in the temples of trees, 
In valleys of roses and bees. 



14 GEO TH EOS. 

Sing songs that are dreamy and tender, 

Of slender Arabian palms, 

And shadows that circle the palms, 
Where caravans, veiled from the splendor, 

Are kneeling in blossoms and balms, 

In islands of infinite calms. 

Barbaric, O Man, was thy runing 

When mountains were stained as with wine 
By the dawning of Time, and as wine 

Were the seas, yet its echoes are crooning, 
Achant in the gusty pine 
And the pulse of the poet's line. 



YORICK. 15 



YORICK. 

Hard by an excavated street one sat 

In solitary session on the sand; 
And ever and anon he spake and spat 

And spake again — a yellow skull in hand, 
To which that retrospective Pioneer 
Addressed the few remarks that follow here: 

" Who are you ? Did you come 'der blains agross/ 
Or ' Horn aroundt ' ? In days o' '49 

Did them thar eye-holes see the Southern Cross 
From the Antarctic Sea git up an' shine ? 

Or did you drive a bull team ' all the way 

From Pike,' with Mr. Joseph Bowers? — say! 

" Was you in Frisco when the water came 
Up to Montgum'ry street? and do you mind 

The time when Peters run the faro game — 
Jim Peters from old Mississip — behind 

Wells Fargo's, where he subsequent was bust 

By Sandy, as regards both bank and crust? 

" I wonder was you here when Casey shot 
James King o' William? And did you attend 

The neck-tie dance ensuin' ? / did not, 

But j'ined the rush to Go Creek with my friend 



16 YORICK. 

Ed'ard McGowan ; for we was resolved 
In sech diversions not to be involved. 

" Maybe I knowed you ; seems to me I 've seed 
Your face afore. I don't forget a face, 

But names I disremember — I 'm that breed 
Of owls. I 'm talking some'at into space 

An' maybe my remarks is too derned free, 

Seein' yer name is unbeknown to me. 

" Ther' was a time, I reckon, when I knowed 
Nigh onto every dern galoot in town. 

That was as late as '50. Now she 's growed 
Surprisin' ! Yes, me an' my pardner, Brown, 

Was wide acquainted. If ther' was a cuss 

We did n't know, the cause was — he knowed us. 

" Maybe you had that claim adjoinin' mine 

Up thar in Calaveras. Was it you 
To which Long Mary took a mighty shine, 

An' throwed squar' of! on Jake the Kangaroo? 
I guess if she could see ye now she 'd take 
Her chance o' happiness along o' Jake. 

" You ain't so purty now as you was then : 
Yer eyes is nothin' but two prospect holes, 

An' women which are hitched to better men 

Would hardly for sech glances damn their souls, 

As Lengthie did. By G ! I hope it 's you, 

For" (kicks the skull) "I'm Jake the Kangaroo." 



A VISION OF DOOM. 17 



A VISION OF DOOM. 

I stood upon a hill. The setting sun 
Was crimson with a curse and a portent, 
And scarce his angry ray lit up the land 
That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared 
Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up 
From dim tarns hateful with some horrid ban, 
Took shapes forbidden and without a name. 
Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reeds 
With cries discordant, startled all the air, 
And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom— 
The ghosts of blasphemies long ages stilled, 
And shrieks of women, and men's curses. All 
These visible shapes, and sounds no mortal ear 
Had ever heard, some spiritual sense 
Interpreted, though brokenly; for I 
Was haunted by a consciousness of crime, 
Some giant guilt, but whose I knew not. All 
These things malign, by sight and sound revealed, 
Were sin-begotten ; that I knew — no more — 
And that but dimly, as in dreadful dreams 
The sleepy senses babble to the brain 
Imperfect witness. As I stood a voice, 



18 A VISION OF DOOM. 

But whence it came I knew not, cried aloud 

Some words to me in a forgotten tongue, 

Yet straight I knew me for a ghost forlorn, 

Returned from the illimited inane. 

Again, but in a language that I knew, 

As in reply to something which in me 

Had shaped itself a thought, but found no words, 

It spake from the dread mystery about: 

" Immortal shadow of a mortal soul 

That perished with eternity, attend. 

What thou beholdest is as void as thou : 

The shadow of a poet's dream — himself 

As thou, his soul as thine, long dead, 

But not like thine outlasted by its shade. 

His dreams alone survive eternity 

As pictures in the unsubstantial void. 

Excepting thee and me (and we because 

The poet wove us in his thought) remains 

Of nature and the universe no part 

Or vestige but the poet's dreams. This dread, 

Unspeakable land about thy feet, with all 

Its desolation and its terrors — lo! 

'T is but a phantom world. So long ago 

That God and all the angels since have died 

That poet lived — yourself long dead — his mind 

Filled with the light of a prophetic fire, 

And standing by the Western sea, above 

The youngest, fairest city in the world, 



A VISION OF DOOM. 19 

Named in another tongue than his for one 
Ensainted, saw its populous domain 
Plague-smitten with a nameless shame. For there 
Red-handed murder rioted; and there 
The people gathered gold, nor cared to loose 
The assassin's fingers from the victim's throat, 
But said, each in his vile pursuit engrossed: 
'Am I my brother's keeper? Let the Law 
Look to the matter.' But the Law did not. 
And there, O pitiful ! the babe was slain 
Within its mother's breast and the same grave 
Held babe and mother; and the people smiled, 
Still gathering gold, and said : ' The Law, the Law/ 
Then the great poet, touched upon the lips 
With a live coal from Truth's high altar, raised 
His arms to heaven and sang a song of doom — 
Sang of the time to be, when God should lean 
Indignant from the Throne and lift his hand, 
And that foul city be no more! — a tale, 
A dream, a desolation and a curse! 
No vestige of its glory should survive 
In fact or memory : its people dead, 
Its site forgotten, and its very name 
Disputed." 

"Was the prophecy fulfilled?" 
The sullen disc of the declining sun 
Was crimson with a curse and a portent, 
And scarce his angry ray lit up the land 



20 A VISION OF DOOM. 

That lay below, whose lurid gloom appeared 
Freaked with a moving mist, which, reeking up 
From dim tarns hateful with a horrid ban, 
Took shapes forbidden and without a name. 
Gigantic night-birds, rising from the reeds 
With cries discordant, startled all the air, 
And bodiless voices babbled in the gloom. 
But not to me came any voice again ; 
And, covering my face with thin, dead hands, 
I wept, and woke, and cried aloud to God ! 



POLITICS. 21 



POLITICS. 

That land full surely hastens to its end 
Where public sycophants in homage bend 
The populace to flatter, and repeat 
The doubled echoes of its loud conceit. 
Lowly their attitude but high their aim, 
They creep to eminence through paths of shame, 
Till fixed securely in the seats of pow'r, 
The dupes they flattered they at last devour. 



22 FOESY. 



POESY. 

Successive bards pursue Ambition's fire 
That shines, Oblivion, above thy mire. 
The latest mounts his predecessor's trunk, 
And sinks his brother ere himself is sunk. 
So die ingloriously Fame's elite, 
But dams of dunces keep the line complete. 



IN DEFENSE. 23 



IN DEFENSE. 

You may say, if you please, Johnny Bull, that our girls 
Are crazy to marry your dukes and your earls ; 
But I've heard that the maids of your own little isle 
Greet bachelor lords with a favoring smile. 

Nay, titles, 't is said in defense of our fair, 
Are popular here because popular there ; 
And for them our ladies persistently go 
Because 'tis exceedingly English, you know. 

Whatever the motive, you '11 have to confess 
The effort's attended with easy success ; 
And — pardon the freedom — 't is thought, over here, 
'T is mortification you mask with a sneer. 

It 's all very well, sir, your scorn to parade 
Of the high nasal twang of the Yankee maid, 
But, ah, to my lord when he dares to propose 
No sound is so sweet as that "Yes" from the nose. 

Our ladies, we grant, walk alone in the street 
(Observe, by-the-by, on what delicate feet!) 
T is a habit they got here at home, where they say 
The men from politeness go seldom astray. 



24 IN DEFENSE. 

Ah, well, if the dukes and the earls and that lot 
Can stand it (God succor them if they cannot!) 
Your commoners ought to assent, I am sure, 
And what they 're not called on to suffer, endure. 

" 'T is nothing but money?" "Your nobles are 

bought?" 
As to that, I submit, it is commonly thought 
That England's a country not specially free 
Of Crcesi and (if you'll allow it) Crcesae. 

You 've many a widow and many a girl 
With money to purchase a duke or an earl. 
'T is a very remarkable thing, you '11 agree, 
When goods import buyers from over the sea. 

Alas for the woman of Albion's isle! 
She may simper ; as well as she can she may smile ; 
She may wear pantalettes and an air of repose — 
But my lord of the future will talk through his nose. 



AN INVOCATION. 25 



AN INVOCATION. 

[Read at the Celebration of Independence Day in San 
Francisco, in 1888.] 

Goddess of Liberty ! O thou 

Whose tearless eyes behold the chain, 
And look unmoved upon the slain, 

Eternal peace upon thy brow, — 

Before thy shrine the races press, 
Thy perfect favor to implore — 
The proudest tyrant asks no more, 

The ironed anarchist no less. 

Thine altar-coals that touch the lips 
Of prophets kindle, too, the brand 
By Discord flung with wanton hand 

Among the houses and the ships. 

Upon thy tranquil front the star 

Burns bleak and passionless and white, 
Its cold inclemency of light 

More dreadful than the shadows are. 



26 AN INVOCATION. 

Thy name we do not here invoke 
Our civic rites to sanctify: 
Enthroned in thy remoter sky. 

Thou heedest not our broken yoke. 

Thou carest not for such as we : 
Our millions die to serve the still 
And secret purpose of thy will. 

They perish — what is that to thee? 

The light that fills the patriot's tomb 
Is not of thee. The shining crown 
Compassionately offered down 

To those who falter in the gloom, 

And fall, and call upon thy name, 
And die desiring — 't is the sign 
Of a diviner love than thine, 

Rewarding with a richer fame. 

To him alone let freemen cry 

Who hears alike the victor's shout, 
The song of faith, the moan of doubt, 

And bends him from his nearer sky. 

God of my country and my race ! 
So greater than the gods of old — 
So fairer than the prophets told 

Who dimly saw and feared thy face, — 



AN INVOCATION. 27 

Who didst but half reveal thy will 
And gracious ends to their desire, 
Behind the dawn's advancing fire 

Thy tender day-beam veiling still, — 

To whom the unceasing suns belong, 
And cause is one with consequence, — 
To whose divine, inclusive sense 

The moan is blended with the song, — 

Whose laws, imperfect and unjust, 
Thy just and perfect purpose serve: 
The needle, howsoe'er it swerve, 

Still warranting the sailor's trust, — 

God, lift thy hand and make us free 
To crown the work thou hast designed. 
O, strike away the chains that bind 

Our souls to one idolatry! 

The liberty thy love hath given 

We thank thee for. We thank thee for 
Our great dead fathers' holy war 

Wherein our manacles were riven. 

We thank thee for the stronger stroke 
Ourselves delivered and incurred 
When — thine incitement half unheard — 

The chains we riveted we broke. 



28 AN INVOCATION. 

We thank thee that beyond the sea 
The people, growing ever wise, 
Turn to the west their serious eyes 

And dumbly strive to be as we. 

As when the sun's returning flame 
Upon the Nileside statue shone, 
And struck from the enchanted stone 

The music of a mighty fame, 

Let Man salute the rising day 

Of Liberty, but not adore. 

*T is Opportunity — no more — 
A useful, not a sacred, ray. 

It bringeth good, it bringeth ill, 

As he possessing shall elect. 

He maketh it of none effect 
Who walketh not within thy will. 

Give thou or more or less, as we 

Shall serve the right or serve the wrong. 
Confirm our freedom but so long 

As we are worthy to be free. 

But when (O, distant be the time!) 
Majorities in passion draw 
Insurgent swords to murder Law, 

And all the land is red with crime ; 



AN INVOCATION. 29 

Or — nearer menace ! — when the band 
Of feeble spirits cringe and plead 
To the gigantic strength of Greed, 

And fawn upon his iron hand; — 

Nay, when the steps to state are worn 
In hollows by the feet of thieves, 
And Mammon sits among the sheaves 

And chuckles while the reapers mourn; 

Then stay thy miracle! — replace 

The broken throne, repair the chain, 
Restore the interrupted reign 

And veil again thy patient face. 

Lo! here upon the world's extreme 
We stand with lifted arms and dare 
By thine eternal name to swear 

Our country, which so fair we deem — 

Upon whose hills, a bannered throng, 
The spirits of the sun display 
Their flashing lances day by day 

And hear the sea's pacific song — 

Shall be so ruled in right and grace 
That men shall say : " O, drive afield 
The lawless eagle from the shield, 

And call an angel to the place ! " 



30 RELIGION. 



RELIGION. 

Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod, 
Sought the great temple of the living God. 

The worshippers arose and drove him forth, 
And one in power beat him with a rod. 

" Allah," he cried, " thou seest what I got ; 
Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot." 

" Be comforted," the Holy One replied ; 
" It is the only place where I am not." 



A MORNING FANCY. 31 



A MORNING FANCY. 

I drifted (or I seemed to) in a boat 

Upon the surface of a shoreless sea 
Whereon no ship nor anything did float, 

Save only the frail bark supporting me ; 

And that — it was so shadowy — seemed to be 
Almost from out the very vapors wrought 

Of the great ocean underneath its keel; 
And all that blue profound appeared as naught 

But thicker sky, translucent to reveal, 
Miles down, whatever through its spaces glided, 
Or at the bottom traveled or abided. 

Great cities there I saw — of rich and poor, 
The palace and the hovel; mountains, vales, 

Forest and field, the desert and the moor, 

Tombs of the good and wise who'd lived in jails, 
And seas of denser fluid, white with sails 

Pushed at by currents moving here and there 
And sensible to sight above the flat 

Of that opaquer deep. Ah, strange and fair 
The nether world that I was gazing at 

With beating heart from that exalted level, 

And — lest I founder — trembling like the devil! 



32 A MORNING FANCY. 

The cities all were populous: men swarmed 
In public places — chattered, laughed and wept; 

And savages their shining bodies warmed 

At fires in primal woods. The wild beast leapt 
Upon its prey and slew it as it slept. 

Armies went forth to battle on the plain 
So far, far down in that unfathomed deep 

The living seemed as silent as the slain, 

Nor even the widows could be heard to weep. 

One might have thought their shaking was but 
laughter ; 

And, truly, most were married shortly after. 

Above the wreckage of that silent fray 

Strange fishes swam in circles, round and 
round — 

Black, double-finned; and once a little way 
A bubble rose and burst without a sound 
And a man tumbled out upon the ground. 

Lord ! \ was an eerie thing to drift apace 
On that pellucid sea, beneath black skies 

And o'er the heads of an undrowning race ; 
And when I woke I said — to her surprise 

Who came with chocolate, for me to drink it: 

" The atmosphere is deeper than you think it." 



VISIONS OF SIN. 33 



VISIONS OF SIN. 

Kraslajorsk, Siberia, March 29. 

"My eyes are better, and I shall travel slowly toward 
home." 

DANENHOWER. 

From the regions of the Night, 
Coming with recovered sight — 
From the spell of darkness free, 
What will Danenhower see? 

He will see when he arrives, 
Doctors taking human lives. 
He will see a learned judge 
Whose decision will not budge 
Till both litigants are fleeced 
And his palm is duly greased. 
Lawyers he will see who fight 
Day by day and night by night ; 
Never both upon a side, 
Though their fees they still divide. 
Preachers he will see who teach 
That it is divine to preach — 
That they fan a sacred fire 
And are worthy of their hire. 
He will see a trusted wife 



34 VISIONS OF SIN. 

(Pride of some good husband's life) 

Enter at a certain door 

And — but he will see no more. 

He will see Good Templars reel — 

See a prosecutor steal, 

And a father beat his child. 

He '11 perhaps see Oscar Wilde. 

From the regions of the Night 
Coming with recovered sight — 
From the bliss of blindness free, 
That 's what Danenhower '11 see. 

1882. 



THE TOWN OF DM. 35 



THE TOWN OF ME. 

Swains and maidens, young and old, 
You to me this tale have told. 

Where the squalid town of Dae 
Irks the comfortable sea, 
Spreading webs to gather fish, 
As for wealth we set a wish, 
Dwelt a king by right divine, 
Sprung from Adam's royal line, 
Town of D33 by the sea, 
Divers kinds of kings there be. 

Name nor fame had Picklepip : 
Ne'er a soldier nor a ship 
Bore his banners in the sun; 

Naught knew he of kingly sport, 

And he held his royal court 
Under an inverted tun. 
Love and roses, ages through, 

Bloom where cot and trellis stand; 
Never yet these blossoms grew — 
Never yet was room for two — 

In a cask upon the strand. 



36 THE TOWN OF DM. 

So it happened, as it ought, 

That his simple schemes he wrought 

Through the lagging summer's day 

In a solitary way. 

So it happened, as was best, 

That he took his nightly rest 

With no dreadful incubus 
This way eyed and that way tressed, 

Featured thus, and thus, and thus, 
Lying lead-like on a breast 
By cares of State enough oppressed. 
Yet in dreams his fancies rude 
Claimed a lordly latitude. 

Town of Dae by the sea, 
Dreamers mate above their state 

And waken back to their degree. 

Once to cask himself away 
He prepared at close of day. 
As he tugged with swelling throat 
At a most unkingly coat — 
Not to get it off, but on, 
For the serving sun was gone — 
Passed a silk-appareled sprite 
Toward her castle on the height, 
Seized and set the garment right. 
Turned the startled Picklepip — 
Splendid crimson cheek and lip! 
Turned again to sneak away, 



THE TOWN OF D2E. 37 

But she bade the villain stay, 
Bade him thank her, which he did 
With a speech that slipped and slid, 
Sprawled and stumbled in its gait 
As a dancer tries to skate. 

Town of Dae by the sea, 
In the face of silk and lace 

Rags too bold should never be. 

Lady Minnow cocked her head: 
" Mister Picklepip," she said, 
" Do you ever think to wed ? " 

Town of Dae by the sea, 
No fair lady ever made a 

Wicked speech like that to me ! 

Wretched little Picklepip 
Said he had n't any ship, 
Any flocks at his command, 
Nor to feed them any land; 
Said he never in his life 
Owned a mine to keep a wife. 
But the guilty stammer so 
That his meaning would n't flow ; 
So he thought his aim to reach 
By some figurative speech: 
Said his Fate had been unkind 
Had pursued him from behind 
(How the mischief could it else?. 



38 THE TOWN OF DM. 

Came upon him unaware, 
Caught him by the collar — there 
Gushed the little lady's glee 

Like a gush of golden bells : 
" Picklepip, why, that is fne!" 

Town of Dae by the sea, 
Grammar 's for great scholars — she 

Loved the summer and the lea. 

Stupid little Picklepip 
Allowed the subtle hint to slip — 
Maundered on about the ship 
That he did not chance to own; 

Told this grievance o'er and o'er, 

Knowing that she knew before ; 
Told her how he dwelt alone. 
Lady Minnow, for reply, 
Cut him off with " So do I ! " 
But she reddened at the fib; 
Servitors had she, ad lib. 

Town of Dae by the sea, 
In her youth who speaks no truth 

Ne'er shall young and honest be. 

Witless little Picklepip 
Manned again his mental ship 
And veered her with a sudden shift. 
Painted to the lady's thought 
How he wrestled and he wrought 



THE TOWN OF DM. 39 

Stoutly with the swimming drift 

By the kindly river brought 
From the mountain to the sea, 
Fuel for the town of Dae. 
Tedious tale for lady's ear: 

From her castle on the height, 

She had watched her water-knight 
Through the seasons of a year, 
Challenge more than met his view 
And conquer better than he knew. 
Now she shook her pretty pate 
And stamped her foot — 't was growing late : 
" Mister Picklepip, when I 
Drifting seaward pass you by; 
When the waves my forehead kiss 

And my tresses float above — 

Dead and drowned for lack of love — 
You '11 be sorry, sir, for this ! " 
And the silly creature cried — 
Feared, perchance, the rising tide. 

Town of Dee by the sea, 
Madam Adam, when she had 'em, 

May have been as bad as she. 

Fiat lux! Love's lumination 
Fell in floods of revelation! 
Blinded brain by world aglare, 
Sense of pulses in the air, 



40 THE TOWN OF DM. 

Sense of swooning and the beating 
Of a voice somewhere repeating 
Something indistinctly heard! 

And the soul of Picklepip 

Sprang upon his trembling lip, 
But he spake no further word 
Of the wealth he did not own ; 
In that moment had outgrown 
Ship and mine and flock and land — 
Even his cask upon the strand. 
Dropped a stricken star to earth, 
Type of wealth and worldly worth. 
Clomb the moon into the sky, 
Type of love's immensity! 
Shaking silver seemed the sea, 
Throne of God the town of Dae! 

Town of Dae. bv the sea, 
From above there cometh love, 

Blessing all good souls that be. 



AN ANARCHIST. 4I 



AN ANARCHIST. 

False to his art and to the high command 
God laid upon him, Markham's rebel hand 
Beats all in vain the harp he touched before : 
It yields a jingle and it yields no more. 
No more the strings beneath his finger-tips 
Sing harmonies divine. No more his lips, 
Touched with a living coal from sacred fires, 
Lead the sweet chorus of the golden wires. 
The voice is raucous and the phrases squeak ; 
They labor, they complain, they sweat, they reek! 
The more the wayward, disobedient song 
Errs from the right to celebrate the wrong, 
More diligently still the singer strums, 
To drown the horrid sound, with all his thumbs. 
Gods, what a spectacle ! The angels lean 
Out of high Heaven to view the sorry scene, 
And Israfel, "whose heart-strings are a lute," 
Though now compassion makes their music mute, 
Among the weeping company appears, 
Pearls in his eyes and cotton in his ears. 



42 AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 



AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 

Once I "dipt into the future far as human eye could 

see," 
And saw — it was not Sandow, nor John Sullivan, but 

she — 
The Emancipated Woman, who was weeping as she 

ran 
Here and there for the discovery of Expurgated Man. 
But the sun of Evolution ever rose and ever set, 
And that tardiest of mortals had n't evoluted yet. 
Hence the tears that she cascaded, hence the sighs that 

tore apart 
All the tendinous connections of her indurated heart. 
Cried Emancipated Woman, as she wearied of the 

search : 
" In Advancing I have left myself distinctly in the 

lurch ! 
Seeking still a worthy partner, from the land of brutes 

and dudes 
I have penetrated rashly into manless solitudes. 
Now without a mate of any kind where am I ? — that's 

to say, 
Where shall I be to-morrow? — where exert my right- 
ful sway 



AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 43 

And the purifying strength of my emancipated mind? 

Can solitude be lifted up, vacuity refined? 

Calling, calling from the shadows in the rear of my 

Advance — 
From the Region of Unprogress in the Dark Domain 

of Chance — 
Long I heard the Unevolvable beseeching my return 
To share the degradation he 's reluctant to unlearn. 
But I fancy I detected — though I pray it was n't that — 
A low reverberation, like an echo in a hat. 
So I 've held my way regardless, evoluting year by 

year, 
Till I 'm what you now behold me — or would if you 

were here — 
A condensed Emancipation and a Purifier proud 
An Independent Entity appropriately loud! 
Independent? Yes, in spirit, but (O, woful, woful 

state ! ) 
Doomed to premature extinction by privation of a 

mate — 
To extinction or reversion, for Unexpurgated Man 
Still awaits me in the backward if I sicken of the van. 
O the horrible dilemma! — to be odiously linked 
With an Undeveloped Species, or become a Type 

Extinct !" 

As Emancipated Woman wailed her sorrow to the air, 
Stalking out of desolation came a being strange and 
rare — 



44 AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 

Plato's Man ! — bipedal, featherless from mandible to 

rump, 
Its wings two quilless flippers and its tail a plumeless 

stump. 
First it scratched and then it clucked, as if in hospita- 
ble terms 
It invited her to banquet on imaginary worms. 
Then it strutted up before her with a lifting of the 

head, 
And in accents of affection and of sympathy it said: 
" My estate is some 'at 'umble, but I 'm qualified to 

draw 
Near the hymeneal altar and whack up my heart and 

claw 
To Emancipated Anything as walks upon the earth ; 
And them things is at your service for whatever they 

are worth. 
I 'm sure to be congenial, marm, nor e'er deserve a 

scowl — 
I 'm Emancipated Rooster, I am Expurgated Fowl ! " 

From the future and its wonders I withdrew my gaze, 

and then 
Wrote this wild unfestive prophecy about the Coming 

Hen. 



ARM A VI RUM QUE. 45 



ARMA VIRUMQUE. 

" Ours is a Christian Army " ; so he said 
A regiment of bangomen who led. 
"And ours a Christian Navy," added he 
Who sailed a thunder- junk upon the sea. 
Better they know than men unwarlike do 
What is an army and a navy, too. 
Pray God there may be sent them by-and-by 
The knowledge what a Christian is, and why. 
For somewhat lamely the conception runs 
Of a brass-buttoned Jesus firing guns. 



46 ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY. 



ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY. 

When a fair bridge is builded o'er the gulf 
Between two cities, some ambitious fool, 
Hot for distinction, pleads for earliest leave 
To push his clumsy feet upon the span, 
That men in after years may single him, 
Saying : " Behold the fool who first went o'er ! " 
So be it when, as now the promise is, 
Next summer sees the edifice complete 
Which some do name a crematorium, 
Within the vantage of whose greater maw's 
Quicker digestion we shall cheat the worm 
And circumvent the handed mole who loves, 
With tunnel, adit, drift and roomy stope, 
To mine our mortal parts in all their dips 
And spurs and angles. Let the fool stand forth 
To link his name with this fair enterprise, 
As first decarcassed by the flame. And if 
With rival greedings for the fiery fame 
They push in clamoring multitudes, or if 
With unaccustomed modesty they all 
Hold off, being something loth to qualify, 
Let me select the fittest for the rite. 
By heaven ! I '11 make so warrantable, wise 



ON A PROPOSED CREMATORY. 47 

And excellent censure of their true deserts, 
And such a searching canvass of their claims, 
That none shall bait the ballot. I'll spread my 

choice 
Upon the main and general of those 
Who, moved of holy impulse, pulpit-born, 
Protested 't were a sacrilege to burn 
God's gracious images, designed to rot, 
And bellowed for the right of way for each 
Distempered carrion through the water pipes. 
With such a sturdy, boisterous exclaim 
They did discharge themselves from their own 

throats 
Against the splintered gates of audience 
'T were wholsesomer to take them in at mouth 
Than ear. These shall burn first : their ignible 
And seasoned substances — trunks, legs and arms, 
Blent indistinguishable in a mass, 
Like winter-woven serpents in a pit — 
None vantaged of his fellow-fools in point 
Of precedence, and all alive — shall serve 
As fueling to fervor the retort 
For after cineration of true men. 



48 A DEMAND. 



A DEMAND. 

You promised to paint me a picture, 
Dear Mat, 
And I was to pay you in rhyme. 
Although I am loth to inflict your 

Most easy of consciences, I 'm 
Of opinion that fibbing is awful, 
And breaking a contract unlawful, 
Indictable, too, as a crime, 
A slight and all that. 

If, Lady Unbountiful, any 
Of that 
By mortals called pity has part 
In your obdurate soul — if a penny 

You care for the health of my heart, 
By performing your undertaking 
You '11 succor that organ from breaking- 
And spare it for some new smart, 
As puss does a rat. 



A DEMAND. 49 

Do you think it is very becoming, 
Dear Mat, 
To deny me my rights evermore 
And — bless you! if I begin summing 

Your sins they will make a long score! 
You never were generous, madam, 
If you had been Eve and I Adam 
You 'd have given me naught but the core, 
And little of that. 

Had I been content with a Titian, 
A cat 
By Landseer, a meadow by Claude, 
No doubt I 'd have had your permission 

To take it — by purchase abroad. 
But why should I sail o'er the ocean 
For Landseers and Claudes ? I've a notion 
All 's bad that the critics belaud. 
I wanted a Mat. 

Presumption 's a sin, and I suffer 
For that: 
But still you did say that sometime, 
If I 'd pay you enough (here 's enougher — 

That 's more than enough) of rhyme 
You 'd paint me a picture. I pay you 
Hereby in advance ; and I pray you 
Condone, while you can, your crime, 
And send me a Mat. 



50 A DEMAND. 

But if you don't do it I warn you, 
Dear Mat, 
I '11 raise such a clamor and cry 
On Parnassus the Muses will scorn you 

As mocker of poets and fly 
With bitter complaints to Apollo: 
" Her spirit is proud, her heart hollow, 
Her beauty" — they '11 hardly deny, 
On second thought, that! 



THE WEATHER WIGHT. 51 



THE WEATHER WIGHT. 

The way was long, the hill was steep, 
My footing scarcely I could keep. 

The night enshrouded me in gloom, 
I heard the ocean's distant boom — 

The trampling of the surges vast 
Was borne upon the rising blast. 

" God help the mariner," I cried, 

" Whose ship to-morrow braves the tide ! 

Then from the impenetrable dark 
A solemn voice made this remark: 

" For this locality — warm, bright ; 
Barometer unchanged; breeze light." 

" Unseen consoler-man," I cried, 
" Whoe'er you are, where'er abide, 

" Thanks — but my care is somewhat less 
For Jack's, than for my own, distress. 



52 THE WEATHER WIGHT. 

" Could I but find a friendly roof, 
Small odds what weather were aloof. 

" For he whose comfort is secure 
Another's woes can well endure." 

" The latch-string 's out," the voice replied, 
" And so 's the door — jes' step inside." 

Then through the darkness I discerned 
A hovel, into which I turned. 



Groping about beneath its thatch, 
I struck my head and then a match. 

A candle by that gleam betrayed 
Soon lent parafnnaceous aid. 

A pallid, bald and thin old man 
I saw, who this complaint began : 

" Through summer suns and winter snows 
I sets observin' of my toes. 

" I rambles with increasin' pain 
The path of duty, but in vain. 

" Rewards and honors pass me by — 
No Congress hears this raven cry ! " 



THE WEATHER WIGHT. 53 

Filled with astonishment, I spoke: 
" Thou ancient raven, why this croak ? 

" With observation of your toes 

What Congress has to do, Heaven knows ! 

"And swallow me if e'er I knew 
That one could sit and ramble too ! " 

To answer me that ancient swain 
Took up his parable again: 

" Through winter snows and summer suns 
A Weather Bureau here I runs. 

" I calls the turn, and can declare 

Jes' when she '11 storm and when she '11 fair. 

" Three times a day I sings out clear 
The probs to all which wants to hear. 

" Some weather stations run with light 
Frivolity is seldom right. 

"A scientist from times remote, 
In Scienceville my birth is wrote. 

"And when I h'ist the 'rainy' sign 
Jes' take your clo'es in off the line." 



54 THE WEATHER WIGHT. 

" Not mine, O marvelous old man, 
The methods of your art to scan, 

" Yet here no instruments there be — 
Nor 'ometer nor 'scope I see. 

"Did you (if questions you permit) 
At the asylum leave your kit ? " 

That strange old man with motion rude 
Grew to surprising altitude. 

" Tools (and sarcazzems too) I scorns — 
I tells the weather by my corns. 

" No doors and windows here you see — 
The wind and m'isture enters free. 

" No fires nor lights, no wool nor fur 
Here falsifies the tempercher. 

" My corns unleathered I expose 
To feel the rain's foretellin' throes. 

" No stockin' from their ears keeps out 
The comin' tempest's warnin' shout. 

" Sich delicacy some has got 

They know next summer 's to be hot. 



THE WEATHER WIGHT. 55 

" This here one says ( for that he 's best) : 
'Storm center passin' to the west.' 

" This feller's vitals is transfixed 
With frost for Janawary sixt'. 

" One chap jes' now is occy'pied 
In fig'rin on next Fridy's tide. 



it T f. 



I 've shaved this cuss so thin and true 
He '11 spot a fog in South Peru. 

" Sech are my tools, which ne'er a swell 
Observatory can excel. 

" By long a-studyin' their throbs 
I catches onto all the probs." 

Much more, no doubt, he would have said, 
But suddenly he turned and fled; 

For in mine eye's indignant green 
Lay storms that he had not foreseen, 

Till all at once, with silent squeals, 

His toes "caught on" and told his heels. 



S 6 T. A. H. 

T. A. H. 

Yes, he was that, or that, as you prefer — 

Did so and so, though, faith, it was n't all ; 

Lived like a fool, or a philosopher, 

And had whatever 's needful for a fall. 

As rough inflections on a planet merge 

In the true bend of the gigantic sphere, 

Nor mar the perfect circle of its verge, 

So in the survey of his worth the small 

Asperities of spirit disappear, 

Lost in the grander curves of character. 

He lately was hit hard : none knew but I 

The strength and terror of that ghastly stroke — 

Not even herself. He uttered not a cry, 

But set his teeth and made a revelry ; 

Drank like a devil — staining sometimes red 

The goblet's edge ; diced with his conscience ; spread, 

Like Sisyphus, a feast for Death, and spoke 

His welcome in a tongue so long forgot 

That even his ancient guest remembered not 

What race had cursed him in it. Thus my friend 

Still conjugating with each failing sense 

The verb "to die" in every mood and tense, 

Pursued his awful humor to the end. 

When like a stormy dawn the crimson broke 

From his white lips he smiled and mutely bled, 

And, having meanly lived, is grandly dead. 



MY MONUMENT. 57 



MY MONUMENT. 

It is pleasant to think, as I 'm watching my ink 

A-drying along my paper, 
That a monument fine will surely be mine 

When death has extinguished my taper. 

From each rhyming scribe of the journalist tribe 
Purged clean of all sentiments narrow, 

A pebble will mark his respect for the stark 
Stiff body that 's under the barrow. 

By fellow-bards thrown, thus stone upon stone 

Will make my celebrity deathless. 
O, I wish I could think, as I gaze at my ink, 

They'd wait till my carcass is breathless. 



58 MAD. 



MAD. 

O ye who push and fight 
To hear a wanton sing — 

Who utter the delight 

That has the bogus ring, — 

O men mature in years, 
In understanding young, 

The membranes of whose ears 
She tickles with her tongue, — 

O wives and daughters sweet, 

Who call it love of art 
To kiss a woman's feet 

That crush a woman's heart,— 

O prudent dams and sires, 
Your docile young who bring 

To see how man admires 
A sinner if she sing, — 

O husbands who impart 
To each assenting spouse 

The lesson that shall start 

The buds upon your brows, — 



MAD. 59 



All whose applauding hands 
Assist to rear the fame 

That throws o'er all the lands 
The shadow of its shame, — 

Go drag her car ! — the mud 
Through which its axle rolls 

Is partly human blood 
And partly human souls. 

Mad, mad! — your senses whirl 
Like devils dancing free, 

Because a strolling girl 
Can hold the note high C. 

For this the avenging rod 
Of Heaven ye dare defy, 

And tear the law that God 
Thundered from Sinai! 



6o HOSPITALITY. 



HOSPITALITY. 

Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine 
(Unless to praise your rascal wine) 
Yet never ask some luckless sinner 
Who needs, as I do not, a dinner? 



FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC. 61 



FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC. 

Let lowly themes engage my humble pen — 

Stupidities of critics, not of men. 

Be it mine once more the maunderings to trace 

Of the expounders' self-directed race — 

Their wire-drawn fancies, finically fine, 

Of diligent vacuity the sign. 

Let them in jargon of their trade rehearse 

The moral meaning of the random verse 

That runs spontaneous from the poet's pen 

To be half -blotted by ambitious men 

Who hope with his their meaner names to link 

By writing o'er it in another ink 

The thoughts unreal which they think they think, 

Until the mental eye in vain inspects 

The hateful palimpsest to find the text. 

The lark ascending heavenward, loud and long 
Sings to the dawning day his wanton song. 
The moaning dove, attentive to the sound, 
Its hidden meaning hastens to expound: 
Explains its principles, design — in brief, 
Pronounces it a parable of grief! 



62 FOR A CERTAIN CRITIC. 

The bee, just pausing ere he daubs his thigh 
With pollen from a hollyhock near by, 
Declares he never heard in terms so just 
The labor problem thoughtfully discussed! 
The browsing ass looks up and clears his whistle 
To say : "A monologue upon the thistle ! " 
Meanwhile the lark, descending, folds his wing 
And innocently asks : " What ! — did I sing ? " 



O literary parasites ! who thrive 

Upon the fame of better men, derive 

Your sustenance by suction, like a leech, 

And, for you preach of them, think masters preach, — 

Who find it half is profit, half delight, 

To write about what you could never write, — 

Consider, pray, how sharp had been the throes 

Of famine and discomfiture in those 

You write of if they had been critics, too, 

And doomed to write of nothing but of you! 

Lo ! where the gaping crowd throngs yonder tent, 

To see the lion resolutely bent ! 

The prosing showman who the beast displays 

Grows rich and richer daily in its praise. 

But how if, to attract the curious yeoman, 

The lion owned the show and showed the showman ? 



RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 63 



RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 

Every religion is important. When men rise above exist- 
ing conditions a new religion comes in, and it is better 
than the old one. — Professor Howison. 

Professor dear, I think it queer 

That all these good religions 
('Twixt you and me, some two or three 

Are schemes for plucking pigeons) — 

I mean 't is strange that every change 

Our poor minds to unfetter 
Entails a new religion — true 

As t' other one, and better. 

From each in turn the truth we learn, 

That wood or flesh or spirit 
May justly boast it rules the roast 

Until we cease to fear it. 

Nay, once upon a time long gone 
Man worshipped Cat and Lizard : 

His God he 'd find in any kind 
Of beast, from a to izzard. 



64 RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. 

When risen above his early love 
Of dirt and blood and slumber, 

He pulled down these vain deities, 
And made one out of lumber. 

" Far better that than even a cat," 
The Howisons all shouted; 

" When God is wood religion 's good ! " 
But one poor cynic doubted. 

"A timber God— that 's very odd ! " 
Said Progress, and invented 

The simple plan to worship Man, 
Who, kindly soul ! consented. 

But soon our eye we lift asky, 

Our vows all unregarded, 
And find (at least so says the priest) 

The Truth — and Man 's discarded. 

Along our line of march recline 
Dead gods devoid of feeling; 

And thick about each sun-cracked lout 
Dried Howisons are kneeling. 



MAGNANIMITY. 6 5 



MAGNANIMITY. 

" To the will of the people we loyally bow ! " 
That 's the minority shibboleth now. 
O noble antagonists, answer me flat — 
What would you do if you did n't do that ? " 



66 TO HER. 



TO HER. 

O, Sinner A, to me unknown 
Be such a conscience as your own ! 
To ease it you to Sinner B 
Confess the sins of Sinner C. 



TO A SUMMER POET. 67 



TO A SUMMER POET. 

Yes, the Summer girl is flirting on the beach, 

With a him. 
And the damboy is a-climbing for the peach, 

On the limb ; 
Yes, the bullfrog is a-croaking 
And the dudelet is a-smoking 

Cigarettes ; 
And the hackman is a-hacking 
And the showman is a-cracking 

Up his pets ; 
Yes, the Jersey 'skeeter flits along the shore 
And the snapdog — we have heard it o'er and o'er ; 

Yes, my poet, 

Well we know it — 
Know the spooners how they spoon 

In the bright 

Dollar light 
Of the country tavern moon; 

Yes, the caterpillars fall 

From the trees (we know it all), 
And with beetles all the shelves 
Are alive. 



68 TO A SUMMER POET. 

Please unbuttonhole us — O, 
Have the grace to let us go, 
For we know 
How you Summer poets thrive, 
By the recapitulation 
And insistent iteration 
Of the wondrous doings incident to Life Among 
Ourselves ! 
So, I pray you stop the fervor and the fuss. 
For you, poor human linnet, 
There 's a half a living in it, 
But there 's not a copper cent in it for us ! 



ARTHUR MaEWEN. 69 



ARTHUR McEWEN. 

Posterity with all its eyes 

Will come and view him where he lies. 

Then, turning from the scene away 

With a concerted shrug, will say: 

" H'm, Scarabaeus Sisyphus — 

What interest has that to us? 

We can't admire at all, at all, 

A tumble-bug without its ball." 

And then a sage will rise and say : 

" Good friends, you err — turn back, I pray 

This freak that you unwisely shun 

Is bug and ball rolled into one." 



70 CHARLES AND PETER. 



CHARLES AND PETER. 

Ere Gabriel's note to silence died 
All graves of men were gaping wide. 

Then Charles A. Dana, of " The Sun," 
Rose slowly from the deepest one. 

" The dead in Christ rise first, 't is writ," 
Quoth he — " ick, bick, ban, doe, — I 'm It ! " 

(His headstone, footstone, counted slow, 
Were "ick" and "bick," he "ban" and "doe" : 

Of beating Nick the subtle art 
Was part of his immortal part.) 

Then straight to Heaven he took his flight, 
Arriving at the Gates of Light. 

There Warden Peter, in the throes 
Of sleep, lay roaring in the nose. 

" Get up, you sluggard ! " Dana cried — 
" I 've an engagement there inside." 

The Saint arose and scratched his head. 
" I recollect your face," he said. 



CHARLES AND PETER. 7 i 

"(And, pardon me, 'tis rather hard), 
But " Dana handed him a card. 

"Ah, yes, I now remember — bless 
My soul, how dull I am ! — yes, yes, 

"We 've nothing better here than bliss. 
" Walk in. But I must tell you this : 

" We Ve rest and comfort, though, and peace." 
" H'm — puddles," Dana said, "for geese. 

" Have you in Heaven no Hell ? " " Why, no," 
Said Peter, "nor, in truth, below. 



tt ) 



T is not included in our scheme — 
'T is but a preacher's idle dream." 

The great man slowly moved away. 
" I '11 call," he said, "another day. 

" On earth I played it, o'er and o'er, 
And Heaven without it were a bore." 

" O, stuff ! — come in. You '11 make," said Pete, 
"A hell where'er you set your feet." 
1885. 



72 CONTEMPLATION. 



CONTEMPLATION. 

I muse upon the distant town 

In many a dreamy mood. 
Above my head the sunbeams crown 

The graveyard's giant rood. 
The lupin blooms among the tombs. 

The quail recalls her brood. 

Ah, good it is to sit and trace 

The shadow of the cross; 
It moves so still from place to place 

O'er marble, bronze and moss; 
With graves to mark upon its arc 

Our time's eternal loss. 

And sweet it is to watch the bee 

That revels in the rose, 
And sense the fragrance floating free 

On every breeze that blows 
O'er many a mound, where, safe and sound, 

Mine enemies repose. 



CREATION. 73 



CREATION. 

God dreamed — the suns sprang flaming into place, 
And sailing worlds with many a venturous race! 
He woke — His smile alone illumined space. 



74 BUSINESS. 



BUSINESS. 

Two villains of the highest rank 
Set out one night to rob a bank. 
They found the building, looked it o'er, 
Each window noted, tried each door, 
Scanned carefully the lidded hole 
For minstrels to cascade the coal — 
In short, examined five-and-twenty 
Good paths from poverty to plenty. 
But all were sealed, they saw full soon, 
Against the minions of the moon. 
" Enough," said one : "I'm satisfied." 
The other, smiling fair and wide, 
Said : " I 'm as highly pleased as you : 
No burglar ever can get through. 
Fate surely prospers our design — 
The booty all is yours and mine." 
So, full of hope, the following day 
To the exchange they took their way 
And bought, with manner free and frank, 
Some stock of that devoted bank ; 
And they became, inside the year, 
One President and one Cashier. 

Their crime I can no further trace — 
The means of safety to embrace, 
I overdrew and left the place. 



A POSSIBILITY. 75 



A POSSIBILITY. 

If the wicked gods were willing 
(Pray it never may be true!) 
That a universal chilling 

Should ensue 
Of the sentiment of loving, — 

If they made a great undoing 
Of the plan of turtle-doving, 
Then farewell all poet-lore, 
Evermore. 
If there were no more of billing 

There would be no more of cooing 
And we all should be but owls — 

Lonely fowls 
Blinking wonderfully wise, 

With our great round eyes — 
Sitting singly in the gloaming and no longer 

two and two, 
As unwilling to be wedded as unpracticed how 
to woo; 
With regard to being mated, 
Asking still with aggravated 
Ungrammatical acerbity : " To who ? To 
who?" 



76 TO A CENSOR. 



TO A CENSOR. 

" The delay granted by the weakness and good nature of 
our judges is responsible for half the murders." — Daily 
Newspaper. 

Delay responsible? Why, then, my friend, 

Impeach Delay and you will make an end. 

Thrust vile Delay in jail and let it rot 

For doing all the things that it should not. 

Put not good-natured judges under bond, 

But make Delay in damages respond. 

Minos, y£acus, Rhadamanthus, rolled 

Into one pitiless, unsmiling scold — 

Unsparing censor, be your thongs uncurled 

To " lash the rascals naked through the world." 

The rascals ? Nay, Rascality 's the thing 

Above whose back your knotted scourges sing. 

Your satire, truly, like a razor keen, 

"Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen ;" 

For naught that you assail with falchion free 

Has either nerves to feel or eyes to see. 

Against abstractions evermore you charge 

You hack no helmet and you need no targe. 

That wickedness is wrong and sin a vice, 

That wrong 's not right and foulness never nice, 



TO A CENSOR. 77 

Fearless affirm. All consequences dare : 

Smite the offense and the offender spare. 

When Ananias and Sapphira lied 

Falsehood, had you been there, had surely died. 

When money-changers in the Temple sat, 

At money-changing you 'd have whirled the "cat" 

(That John-the-Baptist of the modern pen) 

And all the brokers would have cried amen ! 

Good friend, if any judge deserve your blame 
Have you no courage, or has he no name? 
Upon his method will you wreak your wrath, 
Himself all unmolested in his path? 
Fall to ! fall to ! — your club no longer draw 
To beat the air or flail a man of straw. 
Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall 
Who cuffed the offender's shadow on a wall. 
Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal — 
Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel ! 

We know that judges are corrupt. We know 
That crimes are lively and that laws are slow. 
We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay ; 
That priests and preachers are but birds of pray; 
That merchants cheat and journalists for gold 
Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold. 
'T is all familiar as the simple lore 
That two policemen and two thieves make four. 



78 TO A CENSOR. 

But since, while some are wicked, some are good, 

(As trees may differ though they all are wood) 

Names, here and there, to show whose head is hit, 

The bad would sentence and the good acquit. 

In sparing everybody none you spare : 

Rebukes most personal are least unfair. 

To fire at random if you still prefer, 

And swear at Dog but never kick a cur, 

Permit me yet one ultimate appeal 

To something that you understand and feel : 

Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade — 

You might be read if you would learn your trade. 

Good brother cynics (you have doubtless guessed 
Not one of you but all are here addressed) 
Remember this : the shaft that seeks a heart 
Draws all eyes after it ; an idle dart 
Shot at some shadow flutters o'er the green, 
Its flight unheeded and its fall unseen. 



THE HESITATING VETERAN. 79 



THE HESITATING VETERAN. 

When I was young and full of faith 

And other fads that youngsters cherish 
A cry rose as of one that saith 

With unction : " Help me or I perish ! " 
'T was heard in all the land, and men 

The sound were each to each repeating. 
It made my heart beat faster then 

Than any heart can now be beating. 

For the world is old and the world is gray — 

Grown prudent and, I guess, more witty. 
She 's cut her wisdom teeth, they say, 

And does n't now go in for Pity. 
Besides, the melancholy cry 

Was that of one, 't is now conceded, 
Whose plight no one beneath the sky 

Felt half so poignantly as he did. 

Moreover, he was black. And yet 

That sentimental generation 
With an austere compassion set 

Its face and faith to the occasion. 



80 THE HESITATING VETERAN. 

Then there were hate and strife to spare, 
And various hard knocks a-plenty; 

And I ('t was more than my true share, 
I must confess) took five-and-twenty. 

That all is over now — the reign 

Of love and trade stills all dissensions, 
And the clear heavens arch again 

Above a land of peace and pensions. 
The black chap — at the last we gave 

Him everything that he had cried for, 
Though many white chaps in the grave 

'T would puzzle to say what they died for. 

I hope he's better off — I trust 

That his society and his master's 
Are worth the price we paid, and must 

Continue paying, in disasters; 
But sometimes doubts press thronging round 

('T is mostly when my hurts are aching) 
If war for union was a sound 

And profitable undertaking. 

'T is said they mean to take away 
The Negro's vote for he 's unlettered. 

'T is true he sits in darkness day 

And night, as formerly, when fettered ; 



THE HESITATING VETERAN. 81 

But pray observe — howe'er he vote 

To whatsoever party turning, 
He '11 be with gentlemen of note 

And wealth and consequence and learning. 
With Hales and Morgans on each side, 

How could a fool through lack of knowledge, 
Vote wrong? If learning is no guide 

Why ought one to have been in college? 

Son of Day, O Son of Night ! 
What are your preferences made of? 

1 know not which of you is right, 
Nor which to be the more afraid of. 

The world is old and the world is bad, 

And creaks and grinds upon its axis; 
And man 's an ape and the gods are mad ! — 

There 's nothing sure, not even our taxes. 
No mortal man can Truth restore, 

Or say where she is to be sought for. 
I know what uniform I wore — 

O, that I knew which side I fought for ! 



82 A YEAR'S CASUALTIES. 



A YEAR'S CASUALTIES. 

Slain as they lay by the secret, slow, 

Pitiless hand of an unseen foe, 

Two score thousand old soldiers have crossed 

The river to join the loved and lost. 

In the space of a year their spirits fled, 

Silent and white, to the camp of the dead. 

One after one, they fall asleep 

And the pension agents awake to weep, 

And orphaned statesmen are loud in their wail 

As the souls flit by on the evening gale. 

O Father of Battles, pray give us release 

From the horrors of peace, the horrors of peace ! 



INSPIRATION. 83 



INSPIRATION. 

O hoary sculptor, stay thy hand: 

I fain would view the lettered stone. 
What carvest thou? — perchance some grand 

And solemn fancy all thine own. 
For oft to know the fitting word 
Some humble worker God permits. 
"Jain Ann Meginnis, 

Agid 3rd. 
He givith His beluved fits." 



84 TO-DAY. 



TO-DAY. 

I saw a man who knelt in prayer, 

And heard him say : 
" I '11 lay my inmost spirit bare 
To-day. 

" Lord, for to-morrow and its need 

I do not pray; 
Let me upon my neighbor feed 
To-day. 

" Let me my duty duly shirk 

And run away 
From any form or phase of work 
To-day. 

" From Thy commands exempted still 

Let me obey 
The promptings of my private will 
To-day. 

" Let me no word profane, no lie 

Unthinking say 
If anyone is standing by 
To-day. 



TO-DAY. 85 

" My secret sins and vices grave 
Let none betray; 
The scoffer's jeers I do not crave 
To-day. 

"And if to-day my fortune all 

Should ebb away, 
Help me on other men's to fall 
To-day. 

" So, for to-morrow and its mite 

I do not pray; 
Just give me everything in sight 
To-day." 

I cried : " Amen ! " He rose and ran 

Like oil away. 
I said : " I 've seen an honest man 
To-day." 



86 AN ALIBI. 



AN ALIBI. 

A famous journalist, who long 

Had told the great unheaded throng 

Whate'er they thought, by day or night, 

Was true as Holy Writ, and right, 

Was caught in — well, on second thought, 

It is enough that he was caught, 

And being thrown in jail became 

The fuel of a public flame. 

"Vox populi vox Dei," said 

The jailer. Inxling bent his head 

Without remark: that motto good 

In bold-faced type had always stood 

Above the columns where his pen 

Had rioted in praise of men 

And all they said — provided he 

Was sure they mostly did agree. 

Meanwhile a sharp and bitter strife 

To take, or save, the culprit's life 

Or liberty (which, I suppose, 

Was much the same to him) arose 

Outside. The journal that his pen 

Adorned denounced his crime — but then 



AN ALIBI. 87 

Its editor in secret tried 

To have the indictment set aside. 

The opposition papers swore 

His father was a rogue before, 

And all his wife's relations were 

Like him and similar to her. 

They begged their readers to subscribe 

A dollar each to make a bribe 

That any Judge would feel was large 

Enough to prove the gravest charge — 

Unless, it might be, the defense 

Put up superior evidence. 

The law's traditional delay 

Was all too short: the trial day 

Dawned red and menacing. The Judge 

Sat on the Bench and would n't budge, 

And all the motions counsel made 

Could not move him — and there he stayed. 
" The case must now proceed," he said, 
" While I am just in heart and head, 

It happens — as, indeed, it ought — 

Both sides with equal sums have bought 

My favor: I can try the cause 

Impartially." (Prolonged applause.) 

The prisoner was now arraigned 
And said that he was greatly pained 
To be suspected — he, whose pen 
Had charged so many other men 



88 AN ALIBI. 

With crimes and misdemeanors ! " Why," 

He said, a tear in either eye, 

" If men who live by crying out 

' Stop thief ! ' are not themselves from doubt 

Of their integrity exempt, 

Let all forego the vain attempt 

To make a reputation ! Sir, 

I 'm innocent, and I demur." 

Whereat a thousand voices cried 

Amain he manifestly lied — 

Vox populi as loudly roared 

As bull by picadores gored, 

In his own coin receiving pay 

To make a Spanish holiday. 

The jury — twelve good men and true — 
Were then sworn in to see it through, 
And each made solemn oath that he 
As any babe unborn was free 
From prejudice, opinion, thought, 
Respectability, brains — aught 
That could disqualify; and some 
Explained that they were deaf and dumb. 
A better twelve, his Honor said, 
Was rare, except among the dead. 
The witnesses were called and sworn. 
The tales they told made angels mourn, 
And the Good Book they 'd kissed became 
Red with the consciousness of shame. 



AN ALIBI. 89 

Whenever one of them approached 

The truth, " That witness was n't coached, 

Your Honor ! " cried the lawyers both. 

" Strike out his testimony," quoth 

The learned judge : " This Court denies 

Its ear to stories which surprise. 

I hold that witnesses exempt 

From coaching all are in contempt." 

Both Prosecution and Defense 

Applauded the judicial sense, 

And the spectators all averred 

Such wisdom they had never heard: 

'T was plain the prisoner would be 

Found guilty in the first degree. 

Meanwhile that wight's pale cheek confessed 

The nameless terrors in his breast. 

He felt remorseful, too, because 

He was n't half they said he was. 

" If I 'd been such a rogue," he mused 

On opportunities unused, 

" I might have easily become 

As wealthy as Methusalum." 

This journalist adorned, alas, 

The middle, not the Bible, class. 

With equal skill the lawyers' pleas 
Attested their divided fees. 
Each gave the other one the lie, 
Then helped him frame a sharp reply. 



90 AN ALIBI. 

Good Lord! it was a bitter fight, 
And lasted all the day and night. 
When once or oftener the roar 
Had silenced the judicial snore 
The speaker suffered for the sport 
By fining for contempt of court. 
Twelve jurors' noses good and true 
Unceasing sang the trial through, 
And even vox populi was spent 
In rattles through a nasal vent. 
Clerk, bailiff, constables and all 
Heard Morpheus sound the trumpet call 
To arms — his arms — and all fell in 
Save counsel for the Man of Sin. 
That thaumaturgist stood and swayed 
The wand their faculties obeyed — 
That magic wand which, like a flame, 
Leapt, wavered, quivered and became 
A wonder-worker — known among 
The ignoble vulgar as a Tongue. 

How long, O Lord, how long my verse 
Runs on for better or for worse 
In meter which o'ermasters me, 
Octosyllabically free ! — 
A meter which, the poets say, 
No power of restraint can stay; — 
A hard-mouthed meter, suited well 
To him who, having naught to tell, 



AN ALIBI. 91 

Must hold attention as a trout 

Is held, by paying out and out 

The slender line which else would break 

Should one attempt the fish to take. 

Thus tavern guides who 've naught to show 

But some adjacent curio 

By devious trails their patrons lead 

And make them think 't is far indeed. 

Where was I? 

While the lawyer talked 
The rogue took up his feet and walked: 
While all about him, roaring, slept, 
Into the street he calmly stepped. 
In very truth, the man who thought 
The people's voice from heaven had caught 
God's inspiration took a change 
Of venue — it was passing strange! 
Straight to his editor he went 
And that ingenious person sent 
A Negro to impersonate 
The fugitive. In adequate 
Disguise he took his vacant place 
And buried in his arms his face. 
When all was done the lawyer stopped 
And silence like a bombshell dropped 
Upon the Court: judge, jury, all 
Within that venerable hall 
(Except the deaf and dumb, indeed, 



92 AN ALIBI. 

And one or two whom death had freed) 
Awoke and tried to look as though 
Slumber was all they did not know. 

And now that tireless lawyer-man 

Took breath, and then again began : 

" Your Honor, if you did attend 

To what I've urged (my learned friend 

Nodded concurrence) to support 

The motion I have made, this court 

May soon adjourn. With your assent 

I 've shown abundant precedent 

For introducing now, though late, 

New evidence to exculpate 

My client. So, if you '11 allow, 

I '11 prove an alibi! " " What ?— how ? " 

Stammered the judge. " Well, yes, I can't 

Deny your showing, and I grant 

The motion. Do I understand 

You undertake to prove — good land! — 

That when the crime — you mean to show 

Your client was n't there ? " " O, no, 

I cannot quite do that, I find: 

My alibi 's another kind 

Of alibi — I '11 make it clear, 

Your Honor, that he is n't here." 

The Darky here upreared his head, 

Tranquillity affrighted fled 

And consternation reigned instead! 



REBUKE. 93 



REBUKE. 

When Admonition's hand essays 

Our greed to curse, 
Its lifted finger oft displays 

Our missing purse. 



94 



/. F. B. 



J. F. B. 



How well this man unfolded to our view 

The world's beliefs of Death and Heaven and 

Hell— 
This man whose own convictions none could tell, 

Nor if his maze of reason had a clew. 

Dogmas he wrote for daily bread, but knew 
The fair philosophies of doubt so well 
That while we listened to his words there fell 

Some that were strangely comforting, though true. 

Marking how wise we grew upon his doubt, 
We said : " If so, by groping in the night, 
He can proclaim some certain paths of trust, 

How great our profit if he saw about 

His feet the highways leading to the light." 

Now he sees all. Ah, Christ! his mouth is dust! 



THE DYING STATESMAN. 95 



THE DYING STATESMAN. 

It is a politician man — 

He draweth near his end, 
And friends weep round that partisan, 

Of every man the friend. 

Between the Known and the Unknown 

He lieth on the strand ; 
The light upon the sea is thrown 

That lay upon the land. 

It shineth in his glazing eye, 

It burneth on his face; 
God send that when we come to die 

We know that sign of grace! 

Upon his lips his blessed sprite 

Poiseth her joyous wing. 
" How is it with thee, child of light ? 

Dost hear the angels sing ? " 

" The song I hear, the crown I see, 
And know that God is love. 

Farewell, dark world — I go to be 
A postmaster above ! " 

For him no monumental arch, 

But, O, 't is good and brave 
To see the Grand Old Party march 

To office o'er his grave ! 



96 THE DEATH OF GRANT. 



THE DEATH OF GRANT. 

Father! whose hard and cruel law 
Is part of thy compassion's plan, 
Thy works presumptuously we scan 

For what the prophets say they saw. 

Unbidden still the awful slope 
Walling us in we climb to gain 
Assurance of the shining plain 

That faith has certified to hope. 

In vain! — beyond the circling hill 
The shadow and the cloud abide. 
Subdue the doubt, our spirits guide 

To trust the Record and be still. 

To trust it loyally as he 

Who, heedful of his high design, 
Ne'er raised a seeking eye to thine, 

But wrought thy will unconsciously, 

Disputing not of chance or fate, 
Nor questioning of cause or creed; 
For anything but duty's deed 

Too simply wise, too humbly great. 



THE DEATH OF GRANT. 97 

The cannon syllabled his name ; 

His shadow shifted o'er the land, 

Portentous, as at his command 
Successive cities sprang to flame! 

He fringed the continent with fire, 

The rivers ran in lines of light! 

Thy will be done on earth — if right 
Or wrong he cared not to inquire. 

His was the heavy hand, and his 

The service of the despot blade; 

His the soft answer that allayed 
War's giant animosities. 

Let us have peace: our clouded eyes, 
Fill, Father, with another light, 
That we may see with clearer sight 

Thy servant's soul in Paradise. 



98 THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 



THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 

Of Hans Pietro Shanahan 

(Who was a most ingenious man) 

The Muse of History records 

That he 'd get drunk as twenty lords. 

He 'd get so truly drunk that men 
Stood by to marvel at him when 
His slow advance along the street 
Was but a vain cycloidal feat. 

And when f t was fated that he fall 
With a wide geographical sprawl, 
They signified assent by sounds 
Heard (faintly) at its utmost bounds. 

And yet this Mr. Shanahan 
(Who was a most ingenious man) 
Cast not on wine his thirsty eyes 
When it was red or otherwise. 

All malt, or spirituous, tope 
He loathed as cats dissent from soap; 
And cider, if it touched his lip, 
Evoked a groan at every sip. 



THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 99 

But still, as heretofore explained, 
He not infrequently was grained. 
(I 'm not of those who call it "corned." 
Coarse speech I 've always duly scorned.) 

Though truth to say, and that 's but right, 
Strong drink (it hath an adder's bite!) 
Was what had put him in the mud, 
The only kind he used was blood ! 

Alas, that an immortal soul 
Addicted to the flowing bowl, 
The emptied flagon should again 
Replenish from a neighbor's vein. 

But, Mr. Shanahan was so 
Constructed, and his taste that low. 
Nor more deplorable was he 
In kind of thirst than in degree; 

For sometimes fifty souls would pay 
The debt of nature in a day 
To free him from the shame and pain 
Of dread Sobriety's misreign. 

His native land, proud of its sense 
Of his unique inabstinence, 
Abated something of its pride 
At thought of his unfilled inside. 

LoFC. 



ioo THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 

And some the boldness had to say 
'T were well if he were called away 
To slake his thirst forevermore 
In oceans of celestial gore. 

But Hans Pietro Shanahan 
(Who was a most ingenious man) 
Knew that his thirst was mortal ; so 
Remained unsainted here below — 

Unsainted and unsaintly, for 
He neither went to glory nor 
To abdicate his power deigned 
Where, under Providence, he reigned, 

But kept his Boss's power accurst 
To serve his wild uncommon thirst, 
Which now had grown so truly great 
It was a drain upon the State. 

Soon, soon there came a time, alas ! 
When he turned down an empty glass- 
All practicable means were vain 
His special wassail to obtain. 

In vain poor Decimation tried 
To furnish forth the needful tide; 
And Civil War as vainly shed 
Her niggard offering of red. 



THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 101 

Poor Shanahan ! his thirst increased 
Until he wished himself deceased, 
Invoked the firearm and the knife, 
But could not die to save his life! 

He was so dry his own veins made 

No answer to the seeking blade ; 

So parched that when he would have passed 

Away he could not breathe his last. 

'T was then, when almost in despair, 
(Unlaced his shoon, unkempt his hair) 
He saw as in a dream a way 
To wet afresh his mortal clay. 

Yes, Hans Pietro Shanahan 
(Who was a most ingenious man) 
Saw freedom, and with joy and pride 
"Thalassa! (or Thalatta!)" cried. 

Straight to the Aldermen went he, 
With many a "pull" and many a fee, 
And many a most corrupt "combine" 
(The Press for twenty cents a line 

Held out and fought him — O, God, bless 
Forevermore the holy Press!) 
Till he had franchises complete 
For trolley lines on every street! 



102 THE FOUNTAIN REFILLED. 

The cars were builded and, they say, 
Were run on rails laid every way — 
Rhomboidal roads, and circular, 
And oval — everywhere a car — 

Square, dodecagonal (in great 
Esteem the shape called Figure 8) 
And many other kinds of shapes 
As various as tails of apes. 

No other group of men's abodes 
E'er had such odd electric roads, 
That winding in and winding out, 
Began and ended all about. 

No city had, unless in Mars, 
That city's wealth of trolley cars. 
They ran by day, they flew by night, 
And O, the sorry, sorry sight! 

And Hans Pietro Shanahan 
(Who was a most ingenious man) 
Incessantly, the Muse records, 
Lay drunk as twenty thousand lords! 



LAUS LUC IS. 103 

LAUS LUCIS. 

Theosophists are about to build a "Temple for the 
Revival of the Mysteries of Antiquity." — Vide the News- 
papers, passim. 

Each to his taste : some men prefer to play 
At mystery, as others at piquet. 
Some sit in mystic meditation; some 
Parade the street with tambourine and drum. 
One studies to decipher ancient lore 
Which, proving stuff, he studies all the more ; 
Another swears that learning is but good 
To darken things already understood, 
Then writes upon Simplicity so well 
That none agree on what he wants to tell, 
And future ages will declare his pen 
Inspired by gods with messages to men. 
To found an ancient order those devote 
Their time — with ritual, regalia, goat, 
Blankets for tossing, chairs of little ease 
And all the modern inconveniences ; 
These, saner, frown upon unmeaning rites 
And go to church for rational delights. 
So all are suited, shallow and profound, 
The prophets prosper and the world goes round. 
For me — unread in the occult, I'm fain 
To damn all mysteries alike as vain, 
Spurn the obscure and base my faith upon 
The Revelations of the good St. John. 
1897. 



104 NANINE. 



NANINE. 

We heard a song-bird trilling — 
'T was but a night ago. 

Such rapture he was rilling 
As only we could know. 

This morning he is flinging 
His music from the tree, 

But something in the singing 
Is not the same to me. 

His inspiration fails him, 
Or he has lost his skill. 

Nanine, Nanine, what ails him 
That he should sing so ill? 

Nanine is not replying — 
She hears no earthly song. 

The sun and bird are lying 
And the night is, O, so long! 



TECHNOLOGY. 105 



TECHNOLOGY. 

'T was a serious person with locks of gray 

And a figure like a crescent; 
His gravity, clearly, had come to stay, 

But his smile was evanescent. 

He stood and conversed with a neighbor, and 
With (likewise) a high falsetto; 

And he stabbed his forefinger into his hand 
As if it had been a stiletto. 

His words, like the notes of a tenor drum, 
Came out of his head unblended, 

And the wonderful altitude of some 
Was exceptionally splendid. 

While executing a shake of the head, 
With the hand, as it were, of a master, 

This agonizing old gentleman said: 
" 'T was a truly sad disaster ! 

" Four hundred and ten longs and shorts in all, 
Went down" — he paused and snuffied. 

A single tear was observed to fall, 
And the old man's drum was muffled. 



106 TECHNOLOGY. 

"A very calamitous year," he said, 
And again his head-piece hoary 

He shook, and another pearl he shed, 
As if he wept con amore. 

" O lacrymose person," I cried, "pray why 
Should these failures so affect you? 

With speculators in stocks no eye 

That 's normal would ever connect you." 

He focused his orbs upon mine and smiled 

In a sinister sort of manner. 
" Young man," he said, " your words are wild 

" I spoke of the steamship ' Hanner.' 

" For she has went down in a howlin' squall, 
And my heart is nigh to breakin' — 

Four hundred and ten longs and shorts in all 
Will never need undertakin' ! 

" I 'm in the business myself," said he, 
"And you 've mistook my expression ; 

For I uses the technical terms, you see, 
Employed in my perfession." 

That old undertaker has joined the throng 
On the other side of the River, 

But I 'm still unhappy to think I 'm a " long/ 
And a tape-line makes me shiver. 



/ 



A REPLY TO A LETTER. 107 



A REPLY TO A LETTER. 

O nonsense, parson — tell me not they thrive 

And jubilate who follow your dictation. 
The good are the unhappiest lot alive — 

I know they are from careful observation. 

If freedom from the terrors of damnation 
Lengthens the visage like a telescope, 
And lacrymation is a sign of hope, 

Then I'll continue, in my dreadful plight, 
To tread the dusky paths of sin, and grope 

Contentedly without your lantern's light; 

And though in many a bog beslubbered quite, 
Refuse to flay me with ecclesiastic soap. 

You say 't is a sad world, seeing I 'm condemned, 
With many a million others of my kidney. 

Each continent 's Hammed, Japheted and Shemmed 
With sinners — worldlings like Sir Philip Sidney 

And scoffers like Voltaire, who thought it bliss 

To simulate respect for Genesis — 

Who bent the mental knee as if in prayer, 
But mocked at Moses underneath his hair, 

And like an angry gander bowed his head to hiss. 



108 A REPLY TO A LETTER. 

Seeing such as these, who die without contrition, 
Must go to — beg your pardon, sir — perdition, 
The sons of light, you tell me, can't be gay, 
But count it sin of the sort called omission 
The groan to smother or the tear to stay 
Or fail to — what is that they live by? — pray. 
So down they flop, and the whole serious race is 
Put by divine compassion on a praying basis. 

Well, if you take it so to heart, while yet 

Our own hearts are so light with nature's leaven, 
You '11 weep indeed when we in Hades sweat, 
And you look down upon us out of Heaven. 
In fancy, lo ! I see your wailing shades 
Thronging the crystal battlements. Cascades 
Of tears spring singing from each golden spout, 
Run roaring from the verge with hoarser sound, 
Dash downward through the glimmering pro- 
found, 
Quench the tormenting flame and put the Devil out! 

Presumptuous ass ! to you no power belongs 
To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs 

Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, 
With less of ink than incoherence fraught 

Befits the folly that it tries to utter. 

Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: 
You suffer from impediment of thought. 



A REPLY TO A LETTER. 109 

When next you "point the way to Heaven," take care : 
Your fingers all being thumbs, point, Heaven knows 

where ! 
Farewell, poor dunce ! your letter though I blame, 
Bears witness how my anger I can tame : 
I Ve called you everything except your hateful name ! 



no TO OSCAR WILDE. 



TO OSCAR WILDE. 

Because from Folly's lips you got 
Some babbled mandate to subdue 
The realm of Common Sense, and you 

Made promise and considered not — 

Because you strike a random blow 
At what you do not understand, 
And beckon with a friendly hand 

To something that you do not know, 

I hold no speech of your desert, 
Nor answer with porrected shield 
The wooden weapon that you wield, 

But meet you with a cast of dirt. 

Dispute with such a thing as you — 
Twin show to the two-headed calf? 
Why, sir, if I repress my laugh, 

'T is more than half the world can do. 

1882. 



PRAYER. in 



PRAYER. 

Fear not in any tongue to call 
Upon the Lord — He's skilled in all. 
But if He answereth my plea 
He speaketh one unknown to me. 



ii2 A "BORN LEADER OF MEN. 



A "BORN LEADER OF MEN." 

Tuckerton Tamerlane Morey Mahosh 
Is a statesman of world-wide fame, 
With a notable knack at rhetorical bosh 
To glorify somebody's name — 
Somebody chosen by Tuckerton' s masters 
To succor the country from divers disasters 
Portentous to Mr. Mahosh. 

Percy O'Halloran Tarpy Cabee 

Is in the political swim. 
He cares not a button for men, not he : 
Great principles captivate him — 
Principles cleverly cut out and fitted 
To Percy's capacity, duly submitted, 
And fought for by Mr. Cabee. 

Drusus Turn Swinnerton Porfer Fitzurse 

Holds office the most of his life. 
For men nor for principles cares he a curse, 
But much for his neighbor's wife. 
The Ship of State leaks, but he does n't pump any, 
Messrs. Mahosh, Cabee & Company 
Pump for good Mr. Fitzurse. 



TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. 113 



TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. 

O Liberty, God-gifted — 

Young and immortal maid — 

In your high hand uplifted, 
The torch declares your trade. 

Its crimson menace, flaming 

Upon the sea and shore, 
Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming 

That Law shall be no more. 

Austere incendiary, 

We 're blinking in the light ; 
Where is your customary 

Grenade of dynamite? 

Where are your staves and switches 

For men of gentle birth? 
Your mask and dirk for riches ? 

Your chains for wit and worth? 

Perhaps, you 've brought the halters 

You used in the old days, 
When round religion's altars 

You stabled Cromwell's bays? 



ii4 TO THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. 

Behind you, unsuspected, 

Have you the axe, fair wench, 

Wherewith you once collected 
A poll-tax from the French? 

America salutes you — 
Preparing to disgorge. 

Take everything that suits you. 
And marry Henry George. 

1894 



AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS. 115 



AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS. 

Christmas, you tell me, comes but once a year. 
One place it never comes, and that is here. 
Here, in these pages no good wishes spring, 
No well-worn greetings tediously ring — 
For Christmas greetings are like pots of ore: 
The hollower they are they ring the more. 
Here shall no holly cast a spiny shade, 
Nor mistletoe my solitude invade, 
No trinket-laden vegetable come, 
No jorum steam with Sheolate of rum. 
No shrilling children shall their voices rear. 
Hurrah for Christmas without Christmas cheer ! 

No presents, if you please — I know too well 

What Herbert Spencer, if he did n't tell 

(I know not if he did) yet might have told 

Of present-giving in the days of old, 

When Early Man with gifts propitiated 

The chiefs whom most he doubted, feared and hated, 

Or tendered them in hope to reap some rude 

Advantage from the taker's gratitude. 

Since thus the Gift its origin derives 

(How much of its first character survives 

You know as well as I) my stocking's tied, 

My pocket buttoned — with my soul inside. 

I save my money and I save my pride. 



n6 AN UNMERRY CHRISTMAS. 

Dinner? Yes; thank you — just a human body 
Done to a nutty brown, and a tear toddy 
To give me appetite; and as for drink, 
About a half a jug of blood, I think, 
Will do; for still I love the red, red wine, 
Coagulating well, with wrinkles fine 
Fretting the satin surface of its flood. 

tope of kings — divine Falernian — blood! 

Duse take the shouting fowls upon the limb, 
The kneeling cattle and the rising hymn! 
Has not a pagan rights to be regarded — 
His heart assaulted and his ear bombarded 
With sentiments and sounds that good old Pan 
Even in his demonium would ban ? 

No, friends — no Christmas here, for I have sworn 
To keep my heart hard and my knees unworn. 
Enough you have of jester, player, priest: 

1 as the skeleton attend your feast, 
In the mad revelry to make a lull 

With shaken finger and with bobbing skull. 

However you my services may flout, 

Philosophy disdain and reason doubt, 

I mean to hold in customary state, 

My dismal revelry and celebrate 

My yearly rite until the crack o' doom, 

Ignore the cheerful season's warmth and bloom 

And cultivate an oasis of gloom. 



BY A DEFEATED LITIGANT. 117 



BY A DEFEATED LITIGANT. 

Liars for witnesses ; for lawyers brutes 
Who lose their tempers to retrieve their suits ; 
Cowards for jurors ; and for judge a clown 
Who ne'er took up the law, yet lays it down ; 
Justice denied, authority abused, 
And the one honest person the accused — 
Thy courts, my country, all these awful years, 
Move fools to laughter and the wise to tears. 



n8 AN EPITAPH, 



AN EPITAPH. 

Here lies Greer Harrison, a well cracked louse — 

So small a tenant of so big a house ! 

He joyed in fighting with his eyes (his fist 

Prudently pendent from a peaceful wrist) 

And loved to loll on the Parnassian mount, 

His pen to suck and all his thumbs to count, — 

What poetry he 'd written but for lack 

Of skill, when he had counted, to count back! 

Alas, no more he '11 climb the sacred steep 

To wake the lyre and put the world to sleep ! 

To his rapt lip his soul no longer springs 

And like a jaybird from a knot-hole sings. 

No more the clubmen, pickled with his wine, 

Spread wide their ears and hiccough " That 's 

divine ! " 
The genius of his purse no longer draws 
The pleasing thunders of a paid applause. 
All silent now, nor sound nor sense remains, 
Though riddances of worms improve his brains. 
All his no talents to the earth revert, 
And Fame concludes the record : " Dirt to dirt ! " 



THE POLITICIAN. 119 



THE POLITICIAN. 

" Let Glory's sons manipulate 
The tiller of the Ship of State. 
Be mine the humble, useful toil 
To work the tiller of the soil." 



120 AN INSCRIPTION. 



AN INSCRIPTION 

For a Proposed Monument in Washington to Him who 
Made it Beautiful. 

Erected to "Boss" Shepherd by the dear 

Good folk he lived and moved among in peace — 
Guarded on either hand by the police, 

With soldiers in his front and in his rear. 



FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS. 121 



FROM VIRGINIA TO PARIS. 

The polecat, sovereign of its native wood, 
Dashes damnation upon bad and good; 
The health of all the upas trees impairs 
By exhalations deadlier than theirs; 
Poisons the rattlesnake and warts the toad — 
The creeks go rotten and the rocks corrode! 
She shakes o'er breathless hill and shrinking dale 
The horrid aspergillus of her tail! 
From every saturated hair, till dry, 
The spargent fragrances divergent fly, 
Deafen the earth and scream along the sky! 

Removed to alien scenes, amid the strife 

Of urban odors to ungladden life — 

Where gas and sewers and dead dogs conspire 

The flesh to torture and the soul to fire — 

Where all the "well defined and several stinks" 

Known to mankind hold revel and high jinks — 

Humbled in spirit, smitten with a sense 

Of lost distinction, leveled eminence, 

She suddenly resigns her baleful trust, 

Nor ever lays again our mortal dust. 

Her powers atrophied, her vigor sunk, 

She lives deodorized, a sweeter skunk. 



122 A "MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON. 



A "MUTE INGLORIOUS MILTON." 

" O, I 'm the Unaverage Man, 
But you never have heard of me, 

For my brother, the Average Man, outran 
My fame with rapiditee, 
And I 'm sunk in Oblivion's sea, 

But my bully big brother the world can span 
With his wide notorietee. 

I do everything that I can 
To make 'em attend to me, 

But the papers ignore the Unaverage Man 
With a weird uniformitee." 

So sang with a dolorous note 

A voice that I heard from the beach ; 
On the sable waters it seemed to float 

Like a mortal part of speech. 
The sea was Oblivion's sea, 

And I cried as I plunged to swim : 
" The Unaverage Man shall reside with me." 

But he did n't — I stayed with him ! 



THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT. 123 



THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT. 

Oft from a trading-boat I purchased spice 

And shells and corals, brought for my inspection 
From the fair tropics — paid a Christian price 
And was content in my fool's paradise, 

Where never had been heard the word "Protec- 
tion," 

'T was my sole island ; there I dwelt alone — 

No customs-house, collector nor collection, 
But a man came, who, in a pious tone 
Condoled with me that I had never known 
The manifest advantage of Protection. 

So, when the trading-boat arrived one day, 
He threw a stink-pot into its mid-section. 
The traders paddled for their lives away, 
Nor came again into that haunted bay, 
The blessed home thereafter of Protection. 

Then down he sat, that philanthropic man, 
And spat upon some mud of his selection, 
And worked it, with his knuckles in a pan, 
To shapes of shells and coral things, and span 
A thread of song in glory of Protection. 



124 THE FREE TRADER'S LAMENT. 

He baked them in the sun. His air devout 

Enchanted me. I made a genuflexion : 
" God help you, gentle sir/' I said. " No doubt," 
He answered gravely, " I '11 get on without 
Assistance now that we have got Protection." 

Thenceforth I bought his wares — at what a price 

For shells and corals of such imperfection ! 
"Ah, now," said he, "your lot is truly nice." 
But still in all that isle there was no spice 
To season to my taste that dish, Protection. 



SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES. 125 



SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES. 

I died. As meekly in the earth I lay, 
With shriveled fingers reverently folded, 

The worm — uncivil engineer! — my clay 
Tunneled industriously, and the mole did. 
My body could not dodge them, but my soul did ; 

For that had flown from this terrestrial ball 

And I was rid of it for good and all. 

So there I lay, debating what to do — 

What measures might most usefully be taken 

To circumvent the subterranean crew 
Of anthropophagi and save my bacon. 
My fortitude was all this while unshaken, 

But any gentleman, of course, protests 

Against receiving uninvited guests. 

However proud he might be of his meats, 
Not even Apicius, nor, I think, Lucullus, 

Wasted on tramps his culinary sweets; 

"Aut Ccesar" say judicious hosts, "aut nullus." 
And though when Marcius came unbidden Tullus 

Aufidius feasted him because he starved, 

Marcius by Tullus afterward was carved. 



126 SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES. 

We feed the hungry, as the book commands 
(For men might question else our orthodoxy) 

But do not care to see the outstretched hands, 
And so we minister to them by proxy. 
When Want, in his improper person, knocks he 

Finds we 're engaged. The graveworm 's very fresh 

To think we like his presence in the flesh. 

So, as I said, I lay in doubt; in all 

That underworld no judges could determine 

My rights. When Death approaches them they fall, 
And falling, naturally soil their ermine. 
And still below ground, as above, the vermin 

That work by dark and silent methods win 

The case — the burial case that one is in. 

Cases at law so slowly get ahead, 

Even when the right is visibly unclouded, 

That if all men are classed as quick and dead, 
The judges all are dead, though some unshrouded. 
Pray Jove that when they 're actually crowded 

On Styx's brink, and Charon rows in sight, 

His bark prove worse than Cerberus's bite. 

Ah ! Cerberus, if you had but begot 

A race of three-mouthed dogs for man to nourish 

And woman to caress, the muse had not 
Lamented the decay of virtues currish, 
And triple-hydrophobia now would flourish, 



SUBTERRANEAN PHANTASIES. 127 

For barking, biting, kissing to employ 
Canine repeaters were indeed a joy. 

Lord ! how we cling to this vile world ! Here I, 
Whose dust was laid ere I began this carping, 

By moles and worms and such familiar fry 

Run through and through, am singing still and 

harping 
Of mundane matters — flatting, too, and sharping. 

I hate the Angel of the Sleeping Cup : 

So I 'm for getting — and for shutting — up. 



128 IN MEMORIAM. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Beauty (they called her) wasn't a maid 
Of many things in the world afraid. 
She was n't a maid who turned and fled 
At sight of a mouse, alive or dead. 
She was n't a maid a man could "shoo" 
By shouting, however abruptly, "Boo !" 
She was n't a maid who 'd run and hide 
If her face and figure you idly eyed. 
She was 'nt a maid who 'd blush and shake 
When asked what part of the fowl she 'd take. 
(I blush myself to confess she preferred, 
And commonly got, the most of the bird.) 
She was n't a maid to simper because 
She was asked to sing — if she ever was. 

In short, if the truth must be displayed 
In puris — Beauty was n't a maid. 
Beauty, furry and fine and fat, 
Yawny and clawy, sleek and all that, 
Was a pampered and spoiled Angora cat! 



IN MEMORIAM. 129 

I loved her well, and I'm proud that she 
Was n't indifferent, quite, to me ; 
In fact I have sometimes gone so far 
(You know, mesdames, how silly men are) 
As to think she preferred — excuse the conceit — 
My legs upon which to sharpen her feet. 
Perhaps it should n't have gone for much, 
But I started and thrilled beneath her touch ! 

Ah, well, that 's ancient history now : 

The fingers of Time have touched my brow, 

And I hear with never a start to-day 

That Beauty has passed from the earth away. 

Gone! — her death-song (it killed her) sung. 

Gone! — her fiddlestrings all unstrung. 

Gone to the bliss of a new regime 

Of turkey smothered in seas of cream ; 

Of roasted mice (a superior breed, 

To science unknown and the coarser need 

Of the living cat) cooked by the flame 

Of the dainty soul of an erring dame 

Who gave to purity all her care, 

Neglecting the duty of daily prayer, — 

Crisp, delicate mice, just touched with spice 

By the ghost of a breeze from Paradise; 

A very digestible sort of mice. 



130 IN MEMORIAM. 

Let scoffers sneer, I propose to hold 

That Beauty has mounted the Stair of Gold, 

To eat and eat, forever and aye, 

On a velvet rug from a golden tray. 

But the human spirit — that is my creed — 

Rots in the ground like a barren seed. 

That is my creed, abhorred by Man 

But approved by Cat since time began. 

Till Death shall kick at me, thundering "Scat!' 

I shall hold to that, I shall hold to that. 



THE STATESMEN. 131 



THE STATESMEN. 

How blest the land that counts among 

Her sons so many good and wise, 
To execute great feats of tongue 
When troubles rise. 



Behold them mounting every stump 

Our liberty by speech to guard. 
Observe their courage — see them jump 
And come down hard! 

"Walk up, walk up!" each cries aloud, 

"And learn from me what you must do 
To turn aside the thunder cloud, 
The earthquake too. 

"Beware the wiles of yonder quack 

Who stuffs the ears of all that pass. 
I — I alone can show that black 
Is white as grass." 



132 THE STATESMEN. 

They shout through all the day and break 

The silence of the night as well. 
They 'd make — I wish they'd go and make — 
Of Heaven a Hell. 

A advocates free silver, B 

Free trade and C free banking laws. 
Free board, clothes, lodging would from me 
Win warm applause. 

Lo, D lifts up his voice: "You see 

The single tax on land would fall 
On all alike." More evenly 
No tax at all. 

"With paper money" bellows E 

"We '11 all be rich as lords." No doubt— 
And richest of the lot will be 
The chap without. 

As many "cures" as addle wits 

Who know not what the ailment is ! 
Meanwhile the patient foams and spits 
Like a gin fizz. 

Alas, poor Body Politic, 

Your fate is all too clearly read: 
To be not altogether quick, 
Nor very dead. 



THE STATESMEN. 133 

You take your exercise in squirms, 

Your rest in fainting fits between. 
'T is plain that your disorder 's worms — 
Worms fat and lean. 

Worm Capital, Worm Labor dwell 

Within your maw and muscle's scope. 
Their quarrels make your life a Hell, 
Your death a hope. 

God send you find not such an end 

To ills however sharp and huge! 
God send you convalesce! God send 
You vermifuge. 



134 THE BROTHERS. 



THE BROTHERS. 

Scene — A lawyer's dreadful den. 
Enter stall-fed citizen. 

Lawyer. — 'Mornin'. How-de-do? 

Citizen. — Sir, same to you. 
Called as counsel to retain you 
In a case that I '11 explain you. 
Sad, so sad! Heart almost broke. 
Hang it! where's my kerchief? Smoke? 
Brother, sir, and I, of late, 
Came into a large estate. 
Brother 's — h'm, ha, — rather queer 
Sometimes (tapping forehead) here. 
What he needs — you know — a "writ" — 
Something, eh? that will permit 
Me to manage, sir, in fine, 
His estate, as well as mine. 
'Course he '11 kick; 't will break, I fear, 
His loving heart — excuse this tear. 

Lawyer. — Have you nothing more ? 
All of this you said before — 
When last night I took your case. 
Citizen. — Why, sir, your face 
Ne'er before has met my view ! 

Lawyer. — Eh ? The devil ! True : 
My mistake — it was your brother. 
But you 're very like each other. 



THE CYNICS BEQUEST, 135 



THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 

In that fair city, Ispahan, 

There dwelt a problematic man, 

Whose angel never was released, 

Who never once let out his beast, 

But kept, through all the seasons' round, 

Silence unbroken and profound. 

No Prophecy, with ear applied 

To key-hole of the future, tried 

Successfully to catch a hint 

Of what he 'd do nor when begin 't ; 

As sternly did his past defy 

Mild Retrospection's backward eye. 

Though all admired his silent ways, 

The women loudest were in praise: 

For ladies love those men the most 

Who never, never, never boast — 

Who ne'er disclose their aims and ends 

To naughty, naughty, naughty friends. 

Yet, sooth to say, the fame outran 

The merit of this doubtful man, 

For taciturnity in him, 

Though not a mere caprice or whim, 

Was not a virtue, such as truth, 

High birth, or beauty, wealth or youth. 



136 THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 

'T was known, indeed, throughout the span 

Of Ispahan, of Gulistan — 

These utmost limits of the earth 

Knew that the man was dumb from birth. 

Unto the Sun with deep salaams 

The Parsee spreads his morning palms 

(A beacon blazing on a height 

Warms o'er his piety by night.) 

The Moslem deprecates the deed, 

Cuts off the head that holds the creed, 

Then reverently goes to grass, 

Muttering thanks to Balaam's Ass 

For faith and learning to refute 

Idolatry so dissolute! 

But should a maniac dash past, 

With straws in beard and hands upcast, 

To him (through whom, whene'er inclined 

To preach a bit to Madmankind, 

The Holy Prophet speaks his mind) 

Our True Believer lifts his eyes 

Devoutly and his prayer applies ; 

But next to Solyman the Great 

Reveres the idiot's sacred state. 

Small wonder then, our worthy mute 

Was held in popular repute. 

Had he been blind as well as mum, 

Been lame as well as blind and dumb, 



THE CYNICS BEQUEST. I37 

No bard that ever sang or soared 

Could say how he had been adored. 

More meagerly endowed, he drew 

An homage less prodigious. True, 

No soul his praises but did utter — 

All plied him with devotion's butter, 

But none had out — 'twas to their credit — 

The proselyting sword to spread it. 

I state these truths, exactly why 

The reader knows as well as I ; 

They 've nothing in the world to do 

With what I hope we 're coming to 

If Pegasus be good enough 

To move when he has stood enough. 

Egad! his ribs I would examine 

Had I a sharper spur than famine, 

Or even with that if 't would incline 

To examine his instead of mine. 

Where was I ? Ah, that silent man 

Who dwelt one time in Ispahan — 

He had a name — was known to all 

As Meerza Solyman Zingall. 

There lived afar in Astrabad, 
A man the world agreed was mad, 
So wickedly he broke his joke 
Upon the heads of duller folk, 
So miserly, from day to day, 



138 THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 

He gathered up and hid away 
In vaults obscure and cellars haunted 
What many worthy people wanted. 
A stingy man ! — the tradesmen's palms 
Were spread in vain : "I give no alms 
Without inquiry" — so he 'd say, 
And beat the needy duns away. 
The bastinado did, 't is true, 
Persuade him, now and then, a few 
Odd tens of thousands to disburse 
To glut the taxman's hungry purse, 
But still, so rich he grew, his fear 
Was constant that the Shah might hear. 
(The Shah had heard it long ago, 
And asked the taxman if 't were so, 
Who promptly answered, rather airish, 
The man had long been on the parish.) 
The more he feared., the more he grew 
A cynic and a miser, too, 
Until his bitterness and pelf 
Made him a terror to himself; 
Then, with a razor's neckwise stroke, 
He tartly cut his final joke. 
So perished, not an hour too soon, 
The wicked Muley Ben Maroon. 

From Astrabad to Ispahan 

At camel speed the rumor ran 

That, breaking through tradition hoar, 



THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 139 

And throwing all his kinsmen o'er, 

The miser 'd left his mighty store 

Of gold — his palaces and lands — 

To needy and deserving hands 

(Except a penny here and there 

To pay the dervishes for prayer.) 

'T was known indeed throughout the span 

Of earth, and into Hindostan, 

That our beloved mute was the 

Residuary legatee. 

The people said 't was very well, 

And each man had a tale to tell 

Of how he 'd had a finger in 't 

By dropping many a friendly hint 

At Astrabad, you see. But ah, 

They feared the news might reach the Shah ! 

To prove the will the lawyers bore 't 

Before the Kadi's awful court, 

Who nodded, when he heard it read, 

Confirmingly his drowsy head, 

Nor thought, his sleepiness so great, 

Himself to gobble the estate. 

"I give," the dead had writ, "my all 

To Meerza Solyman Zingall 

Of Ispahan. With this estate 

I might quite easily create 

Ten thousand ingrates, but I shun 

Temptation and create but one, 

In whom the whole unthankful crew 



140 THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 

The rich man's air that ever drew 
To fat their pauper lungs I fire 
Vicarious with vain desire! 
From foul Ingratitude's base rout 
I pick this hapless devil out, 
Bestowing on him all my lands, 
My treasures, camels, slaves and bands 
Of wives — I give him all this loot, 
And throw my blessing in to boot. 
Behold, O man, in this bequest 
Philanthropy's long wrongs redressed: 
To speak me ill that man I dower 
With fiercest will who lacks the power. 
Allah il Allah ! now let him bloat 
With rancor till his heart's afloat, 
Unable to discharge the wave 
Upon his benefactor's grave!" 

Forth in their wrath the people came 

And swore it was a sin and shame 

To trick their blessed mute; and each 

Protested, serious of speech, 

That though he 'd long foreseen the worst 

He 'd been against it from the first. 

By various means they vainly tried 

The testament to set aside, 

Each ready with his empty purse 

To take upon himself the curse; 



THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 141 

For they had powers of invective 
Enough to make it ineffective. 
The ingrates mustered, every man, 
And marched in force to Ispahan 
(Which had not quite accommodation) 
And held a camp of indignation. 

The man, this while, who never spoke — 

On whom had fallen this thunder-stroke 

Of fortune, gave no feeling vent 

Nor dropped a clue to his intent. 

Whereas no power to him came 

His benefactor to defame, 

Some (such a length had slander gone to) 

Even whispered that he didn't want to! 

But none his secret could divine; 

If suffering he made no sign, 

Until one night as winter neared 

From all his haunts he disappeared — 

Evanished in a doubtful blank 

Like little crayfish in a bank, 

Their heads retracting for a spell, 

And pulling in their holes as well. 

All through the land of Gul, the stout 
Young Spring is kicking Winter out. 
The grass sneaks in upon the scene, 
Defacing it with bottle-green. 



142 THE CYNICS BEQUEST. 

The stumbling lamb arrives to ply 
His restless tail in every eye, 
Eats nasty mint to spoil his meat 
And make himself unfit to eat. 
Madly his throat the bulbul tears — 
In every grove blasphemes and swears 
As the immodest rose displays 
Her shameless charms a dozen ways. 
Lo! now, throughout the utmost span 
Of Ispahan — of Gulistan — 
A big new book 's displayed in all 
The shops and cumbers every stall. 
The price is low — the dealers say 't is— 
And the rich are treated to it gratis. 
Engraven on its foremost page 
These title-words the eye engage: 
"The Life of Muley Ben Maroon, 
Of Astrabad — Rogue, Thief, Buffoon 
And Miser — Liver by the Sweat 
Of Better Men : A Lamponette 
Composed in Rhyme and Written all 
By Meerza Solyman Zingall I" 



CORRECTED NEWS. 143 



CORRECTED NEWS. 

'T was a maiden lady (the newspapers say) 
Pious and prim and a bit gone-gray. 
She slept like an angel, holy and white, 
Till ten o' the clock in the shank o' the night 
(When men and other wild animals prey) 
And then she cried in the viewless gloom: 
"There 's a man in the room, a man in the room !" 
And this maiden lady (they make it appear) 
Leapt out of the window, five fathom sheer! 

Alas, that lying is such a sin 

When newspaper men need bread and gin 

And none can be had for less than a lie ! 
For the maiden lady a bit gone-gray 
Saw the man in the room from across the way, 
And leapt, not out of the window but in — 

Ten fathom sheer, as I hope to die! 



144 AN EXPLANATION. 



AN EXPLANATION. 

"I never yet exactly could determine 

Just how it is that the judicial ermine 

Is kept so safely from predacious vermin." 

"It is not so, my friend : though in a garret 
'T is kept in camphor, and you often air it, 
The vermin will get into it and wear it." 



JUSTICE. 145 



JUSTICE. 

Jack Doe met Dick Roe, whose wife he loved, 
And said : "I will get the best of him." 

So pulling a knife from his boot, he shoved 
It up to the hilt in the breast of him. 

Then he moved that weapon forth and back, 
Enlarging the hole he had made with it, 

Till the smoking liver fell out, and Jack 
Merrily, merrily played with it. 

Then he reached within and he seized the slack 
Of the lesser bowel, and, traveling 

Hither and thither, looked idly back 
On that small intestine, raveling. 

The wretched Richard, with many a grin 

Laid on with exceeding suavity, 
Curled up and died, and they ran John in 

And charged him with sins of gravity. 

The case was tried and a verdict found : 

The jury, with great humanity, 
Acquitted the prisoner on the ground 

Of extemporary insanity. 



146 MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 



MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 

Of a person known as Peters I will humbly crave your 

leave 
An unusual adventure into narrative to weave — 
Mr. William Perry Peters, of the town of Muscatel, 
A public educator and an orator as well. 
Mr. Peters had a weakness which, 't is painful to relate, 
Was a strong predisposition to the pleasures of debate. 
He would foster disputation wheresoever he might be ; 
In polygonal contention none so happy was as he. 
'T was observable, however, that the exercises ran 
Into monologue by Peters, that rhetorical young man. 
And the Muscatelian rustics who assisted at the show, 
By involuntary silence testified their overthrow — 
Mr. Peters, all unheedful of their silence and their 

grief, 
Still effacing every vestige of erroneous belief. 
0, he was a sore affliction to all heretics so bold 
As to entertain opinions that he did n't care to hold. 

One day — 't was in pursuance of a pedagogic plan 
For the mental elevation of Uncultivated Man — 



MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 147 

Mr. Peters, to his pupils, in dismissing them, explained 
That the Friday evening following (unless, indeed, it 

rained) 
Would be signalized by holding in the schoolhouse a 

debate 
Free to all who their opinions might desire to venti- 
late 
On the question, "Which is better, as a serviceable gift, 
Speech or hearing, from barbarity the human mind to 

lift?" 
The pupils told their fathers, who, forehanded al- 
ways, met 
At the barroom to discuss it every evening, dry or 

wet, 
They argued it and argued it and spat upon the stove, 
And the non-committal "barkeep" on their differences 

throve. 
And I state it as a maxim in a loosish kind of way: 
You '11 have the more to back your word the less you 

have to say. 
Public interest was lively, but one Ebenezer Fink 
Of the Rancho del Jackrabbit, only seemed to sit and 
think. 

On the memorable evening all the men of Muscatel 
Came to listen to the logic and the eloquence as well — 
All but William Perry Peters, whose attendance there, 
I fear, 



148 MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 

Was to wreak his ready rhetoric upon the public ear, 
And prove (whichever side he took) that hearing 

would n't lift 
The human mind as ably as the other, greater gift. 
The judges being chosen and the disputants enrolled, 
The question he proceeded in extenso to unfold : 
"Resolved — The sense of hearing lifts the mind up out 

of reach 
Of the fogs of error better than the faculty of speech." 
This simple proposition he expounded, word by word, 
Until they best understood it who least perfectly had 

heard. 
Even the judges comprehended as he ventured to ex- 
plain — 
The impact of a spit-ball admonishing in vain. 
Beginning at a period before Creation's morn, 
He had reached the bounds of tolerance and Adam yet 

unborn. 
As down the early centuries of pre-historic time 
He tracked important principles and quoted striking 

rhyme, 
And Whisky Bill, prosaic soul! proclaiming him a 

jay, 
Had risen and like an earthquake, "reeled unheededly 

away," 
And a late lamented cat, when opportunity should 

serve, 
Was preparing to embark upon her parabolic curve, 



MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 149 

A noise arose outside — the door was opened with a 

bang 
And old Ebenezer Fink was heard ejaculating 

"Clang!" 
Straight into that assembly gravely marched without a 

wink 
An ancient ass — the property it was of Mr. Fink. 
Its ears depressed and beating time to its infestive 

tread, 
Silent through silence moved amain that stately quad- 
ruped ! 
It stopped before the orator, and in the lamplight 

thrown 
Upon its tail they saw that member weighted with a 

stone. 
Then spake old Ebenezer: "Gents, I heern o' this 

debate 
On w'ether v'ice or y'ears is best the mind to elevate. 
Now 'yer's a bird ken throw some light uponto that 

tough theme: 
He has 'em both, I 'm free to say, oncommonly extreme. 
He wa'n't invited for to speak, but he will not refuse 
(If t' other gentleman ken wait) to exposay his views." 

Ere merriment or anger o'er amazement could prevail, 
He cut the string that held the stone on that canary's 
tail. 



150 MR. FINK'S DEBATING DONKEY. 

Freed from the weight, that member made a gesture of 
delight, 

Then rose until its rigid length was horizontal quite. 

With lifted head and level ears along his withers laid, 

Jack sighed, refilled his lungs and then — to put it mild- 
ly — brayed ! 

He brayed until the stones were stirred in circumjacent 
hills, 

And sleeping women rose and fled, in divers kinds of 
frills. 

'T is said that awful bugle-blast — to make the story 
brief — 

Wafted William Perry Peters through the window, 
like a leaf ! 

Such is the tale. If anything additional occurred 
'T is not set down, though, truly, I remember to have 

heard 
That a gentleman named Peters, now residing at 

Soquel, 
A considerable distance from the town of Muscatel, 
Is opposed to education, and to rhetoric, as well. 



TO MY LAUNDRESS. 151 



TO MY LAUNDRESS. 

Saponacea, wert thou not so fair 

I'd curse thee for thy multitude of sins — 
For sending home my clothes all full of pins — 

A shirt occasionally that's a snare 

And a delusion, got, the Lord knows where, 

The Lord knows why — a sock whose outs and ins 
None know, nor where it ends nor where begins, 

And fewer cuffs than ought to be my share. 

But when I mark thy lilies how they grow, 
And the red roses of thy ripening charms, 
I bless the lovelight in thy dark eyes dreaming. 

I '11 never pay thee, but I 'd gladly go 
Into the magic circle of thine arms, 

Supple and fragrant from repeated steaming. 



152 FAME. 



FAME. 

One thousand years I slept beneath the sod, 

My sleep in 1901 beginning, 
Then, by the action of some scurvy god 

Who happened then to recollect my sinning, 

I was revived and given another inning. 
On breaking from my grave I saw a crowd — 

A formless multitude of men and women, 
Gathered about a ruin. Clamors loud 

I heard, and curses deep enough to swim in; 

And, pointing at me, one said : "Let 's put him in." 
Then each turned on me with an evil look, 
As in my ragged shroud I stood and shook. 

"Nay, good Posterity," I cried, "forbear! 
If that 's a jail I fain would be remaining 

Outside, for truly I should little care 
To catch my death of cold. I 'm just regaining 
The life lost long ago by my disdaining 

To take precautions against draughts like those 
That, haply, penetrate that cracked and splitting 

Old structure." Then an aged wight arose 

From a chair of state in which he had been sitting, 
And with preliminary coughing, spitting 



FAME. 153 

And wheezing, said : " 'T is not a jail, we 're sure, 
Whate'er it may have been when it was newer. 

" 'T was found two centuries ago, o'ergrown 
With brush and ivy, all undoored, ungated; 

And in restoring it we found a stone 
Set here and there in the dilapidated 
And crumbling frieze, inscribed, in antiquated 

Big characters, with certain uncouth names, 
Which we conclude were borne of old by awful 

Rapscallions guilty of all sinful games — 
Vagrants engaged in purposes unlawful, 
And orators less sensible than j awful. 

So each ten years we add to the long row 

A name, the most unworthy that we know." 

"But why," I asked, "put me in ?" He replied : 

"You look it" — and the judgment pained me greatly ; 
Right gladly would I then and there have died, 

But that I 'd risen from the grave so lately. 

But on examining that solemn, stately 
Old ruin I remarked : "My friend, you err — 

The truth of this is just what I expected. 
This building in its time made quite a stir. 

I lived (was famous, too) when 't was erected. 

The names here first inscribed were much respected. 
This is the Hall of Fame, or I'm a stork, 
And this goat pasture once was called New York." 



154 OMNES VAN1TAS. 



OMNES VANITAS. 

Alas for ambition's possessor! 

Alas for the famous and proud! 
The Isle of Manhattan's best dresser 

Is wearing a hand-me-down shroud. 

The world has forgotten his glory; 

The wagoner sings on his wain, 
And Chauncey Depew tells a story, 

And jackasses laugh in the lane. 



ASPIRATION. 155 



ASPIRATION. 

No man can truthfully say that he would not like to 
be President. — William C. Whitney. 

Lo! the wild rabbit, happy in the pride 
Of qualities to meaner beasts denied, 
Surveys the ass with reverence and fear, 
Adoring his superior length of ear, 
And says : "No living creature, lean or fat, 
But wishes in his heart to be like That !" 



156 DEMOCRACY. 



DEMOCRACY. 

Let slaves and subjects with unvaried psalms 
Before their sovereign execute salaams ; 
The freeman scorns one idol to adore — 
Tom, Dick and Harry and himself are four. 



THE NEW " ULALUME." 157 



THE NEW "ULALUME." 

The skies they were ashen and sober, 

The leaves they were crisped and sere, — 
" withering " " 
It was night in the lonesome October 

Of my most immemorial year; 
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, — 
" " down " " dark tarn " 

In the misty mid region of Weir, — 
" " ghoul-haunted woodland " " . 



158 CONSOLATION. 



CONSOLATION. 

Little 's the good to sit and grieve 
Because the serpent tempted Eve. 
Better to wipe your eyes and take 
A club and go out and kill a snake. 

What do you gain by cursing Nick 
For playing her such a scurvy trick? 
Better go out and some villain find 
Who serves the devil, and beat him blind. 

But if you prefer, as I suspect, 

To philosophize, why, then, reflect: 

If the cunning rascal upon the limb 

Had n't tempted her she 'd have tempted him. 



FATE. 159 



FATE. 

Alas, alas, for the tourist's guide! — 
He turned from the beaten trail aside, 
Wandered bewildered, lay down and died. 

O grim is the Irony of Fate: 

It switches the man of low estate 

And loosens the dogs upon the great. 

It lights the fireman to roast the cook ; 
The fisherman squirms upon the hook, 
And the flirt is slain with a tender look. 

The undertaker it overtakes; 

It saddles the cavalier, and makes 

The haughtiest butcher into steaks. 

Assist me, gods, to balk the decree ! 
Nothing I '11 do and nothing I '11 be, 
In order that nothing be done to me. 



i6o PHILOSOPHER BIMM. 



PHILOSOPHER BIMM. 

Republicans think Jonas Bimm 
A Democrat gone mad, 

And Democrats consider him 
Republican and bad. 






The Tough reviles him as a Dude 

And gives it him right hot; " "* 

The Dude condemns his crassitude 

And calls him sans culottes. 

Derided as an Anglophile 

By Anglophobes, forsooth, 
As Anglophobe he feels, the while, 

The Anglophilic tooth. 

The Churchman calls him Atheist; 

The Atheists, rough-shod, 
Have ridden o'er him long and hissed : 

"The wretch believes in God!" 

The Saints whom clergymen we call 

Would kill him if they could; 
The Sinners (scientists and all) 

Complain that he is good. 



PHILOSOPHER BIMM. 161 

All men deplore the difference 
Between themselves and him, 

And all devise expedients 
For paining Jonas Bimm. 

I too, with wild demoniac glee, 
Would put out both his eyes; 

For Mr. Bimm appears to me 
Insufferably wise ! 



162 REMINDED. 



REMINDED. 

Beneath my window twilight made 
Familiar mysteries of shade. 
Faint voices from the darkening down 
Were calling vaguely to the town. 

Intent upon a low, far gleam 

That burned upon the world's extreme, 

I sat, with short reprieve from grief, 

And turned the volume, leaf by leaf, 

Wherein a hand, long dead, had wrought 

A million miracles of thought. 

My fingers carelessly unclung 

The lettered pages, and among 

Them wandered witless, nor divined 

The wealth in which, poor fools, they mined. 

The soul that should have led their quest 

Was dreaming in the level west, 

Where a tall tower, stark and still, 

Uplifted on a distant hill, 

Stood lone and passionless to claim 

Its guardian star's returning flame. 



REMINDED. 163 

I know not how my dream was broke, 

But suddenly my spirit woke 

Filled with a foolish fear to look 

Upon the hand that clove the book, 

Significantly pointing; next 

I bent attentive to the text, 

And read — and as I read grew old — 

The mindless words : "Poor Tom's a-cold ! " 

Ah me! to what a subtle touch 
The brimming cup resigns its clutch 
Upon the wine. Dear God, is 't writ 
That hearts their overburden bear 
Of bitterness though thou permit 
The pranks of Chance, alurk in nooks, 
And striking coward blows from books, 
And dead hands reaching everywhere? 



164 SALVINI IN AMERICA. 



SALVINI IN AMERICA. 

Come, gentlemen — your gold. 

Thanks : welcome to the show, 
To hear a story told 

In words you do not know. 

Now, great Salvini, rise 

And thunder through your tears, 
Aha! friends, let your eyes 

Interpret to your ears. 

Gods ! 't is a goodly game. 

Observe his stride — how grand ! 
When legs like his declaim 

Who can misunderstand? 

See how that arm goes round. 

It says, as plain as day : 
"I love," "The lost is found," 

"Well met, sir," or, "Away !" 

And mark the drawing down 
Of brows. How accurate 

The language of that frown : 
Pain, gentlemen — or hate. 



SALVINI IN AMERICA. 165 

Those of the critic trade 

Swear it is all as clear 
As if his tongue were made 

To fit an English ear. 

Hear that Italian phrase ! 

Greek to your sense, 't is true ; 
But shrug, expression, gaze — 

Well, they are Grecian too. 

But it is Art ! God wot 

Its tongue to all is known. 
Faith ! he to whom 't were not 

Would better hold his own. 

Shakespeare says act and word 

Must match together true. 
From what you 've seen and heard, 

How can you doubt they do? 

Enchanting drama! Mark 
The crowd "from pit to dome". 

One box alone is dark — 
The prompter stays at home. 

Stupendous artist! You 

Are lord of joy and woe : 
We thrill if you say "Boo," 

And thrill if you say "Bo." 



166 ANOTHER WAY. 



ANOTHER WAY. 

I lay in silence, dead. A woman came 
And laid a rose upon my breast and said : 

"May God be merciful." She spoke my name, 
And added : "It is strange to think him dead. 

"He loved me well enough, but 't was his way 
To speak it lightly." Then, beneath her breath 

"Besides" — I knew what further she would say, 
But then a footfall broke my dream of death. 

To-day the words are mine. I lay the rose 
Upon her breast, and speak her name and deem 

It strange indeed that she is dead. God knows 
I had more pleasure in the other dream. 



ART. 167 



ART. 

For Gladstone's portrait five thousand pounds 
Were paid, 't is said, to Sir John Millais. 
I cannot help thinking that such fine pay 

Transcended reason's uttermost bounds. 

For it seems to me uncommonly queer 
That a painted British stateman's price 
Exceeds the established value thrice 

Of a living statesman over here. 



i68 AN ENEMY TO LAW AND ORDER. 



AN ENEMY TO LAW AND ORDER. 

A is defrauded of his land by B, 
Who 's driven from the premises by C. 
D buys the place with coin of plundered E. 
'That A's an Anarchist !" says F to G. 



TO ONE ACROSS THE WAY. 169 



TO ONE ACROSS THE WAY. 

When at your window radiant you 've stood 
I Ve sometimes thought — forgive me if I've erred — 
That some slight thought of me perhaps has stirred 

Your heart to beat less gently than it should. 

I know you beautiful; that you are good 
I hope — or fear — I cannot choose the word, 
Nor rightly suit it to the thought. I Ve heard 

Reason at love's dictation never could. 

Blindly to this dilemma so I grope, 

As one whose every pathway has a snare : 
If you are minded in the saintly fashion 

Of your pure face my passion 's without hope ; 
If not, alas ! I equally despair, 
For what to me were hope without the passion ? 



170 THE DEBTOR ABROAD. 



THE DEBTOR ABROAD. 

Grief for an absent lover, husband, friend, 
Is barely felt before it comes to end : 
A score of early consolations serve 
To modify its mouth's dejected curve. 
But woes of creditors when debtors flee 
Forever swell the separating sea. 
When standing on an alien shore you mark 
The steady course of some intrepid bark, 
How sweet to think a tear for you abides, 
Not all unuseful, in the wave she rides ! — 
That sighs for you commingle in the gale 
Beneficently bellying her sail ! 



FORESIGHT. 171 



FORESIGHT. 

An "actors' cemetery" ! Sure 
The devil never tires 

Of planning places to procure 
The sticks to feed his fires. 



172 A FAIR DIVISION. 



A FAIR DIVISION. 

Another Irish landlord gone to grass, 
Slain by the bullets of the tenant class ! 
Pray, good agrarians, what wrong requires 
Such foul redress? Between you and the squires 
All Ireland 's parted with an even hand — 
For you have all the ire, they all the land. 



GENESIS. 173 



GENESIS. 

God said : "Let there be Man," and from the clay 

Adam came forth and, thoughtful, walked away. 

The matrix whence his body was obtained, 

An empty, man-shaped cavity, remained 

All unregarded from that early time 

Till in a recent storm it filled with slime. 

Now Satan, envying the Master's power 

To make the meat himself could but devour, 

Strolled to the place and, standing by the pool, 

Exerted all his will to make a fool. 

A miracle ! — from out that ancient hole 

Rose Morehouse, lacking nothing but a soul. 

"To give him that I've not the power divine," 

Said Satan, sadly, "but I'll lend him mine." 

He breathed it into him, a vapor black, 

And to this day has never got it back. 



174 LIBERTY. 



LIBERTY. 

" 'Let there be Liberty !' God said, and, lo ! 
The red skies all were luminous. The glow- 
Struck first Columbia's kindling mountain peaks 
One hundred and eleven years ago!" 

So sang a patriot whom once I saw 
Descending Bunker's holy hill. With awe 

I noted that he shone with sacred light, 
Like Moses with the tables of the Law. 

One hundred and eleven years ? O small 
And paltry period compared with all 

The tide of centuries that flowed and ebbed 
To etch Yosemite's divided wall ! 

Ah, Liberty, they sing you always young 
Whose harps are in your adoration strung 

(Each swears you are his countrywoman, too, 
And speak no language but his mother tongue). 

And truly, lass, although with shout and horn 
Man has all-hailed you from creation's morn, 

I cannot think you old — I think, indeed, 
You are by twenty centuries unborn. 

1886. 



THE PASSING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD. 175 



THE PASSING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD. 

The sullen church-bell's intermittent moan, 
The dirge's melancholy monotone, 
The measured march, the drooping flags, attest 
A great man's progress to his place of rest. 
Along broad avenues himself decreed 
To serve his fellow men's disputed need — 
Past parks he raped away from robbers' thrift 
And gave to poverty, wherein to lift 
Its voice to curse the giver and the gift — 
Past noble structures that he reared for men 
To meet in and revile him, tongue and pen, 
Draws the long retinue of death to show 
The fit credentials of a proper woe. 

"Boss" Shepherd, you are dead. Your hand no 

more 
Throws largess to the mobs that ramp and roar 
For blood of benefactors who disdain 
Their purity of purpose to explain, 
Their righteous motive and their scorn of gain. 
Your period of dream — 't was but a breath — 
Is closed in the indifference of death. 
Sealed in your silences, to you alike 



176 THE PASSING OF " BOSS " SHEPHERD. 

If hands are lifted to applaud or strike. 

No more to your dull, inattentive ear 

Praise of to-day than curse of yesteryear. 

From the same lips the honied phrases fall 

That still are bitter from cascades of gall. 

We note the shame ; you in your depth of dark 

The red-writ testimony cannot mark 

On every honest cheek; your senses all 

Locked, incommunicado, in your pall, 

Know not who sit and blush, who stand and bawl. 

"Seven Grecian cities claim great Homer dead, 
Through which the living Homer begged his 

bread." 
So sang, as if the thought had been his own, 
An unknown bard, improving on a known. 
" Neglected genius !" — that is sad indeed, 
But malice better would ignore than heed, 
And Shepherd's soul, we rightly may suspect, 
Prayed often for the mercy of neglect 
When hardly did he dare to leave his door 
Without a guard behind him and before 
To save him from the gentlemen that now 
In cheap and easy reparation bow 
Their corrigible heads above his corse 
To counterfeit a grief that 's half remorse. 



THE PASSING OF "BOSS" SHEPHERD. 177 

The pageant passes and the exile sleeps, 
And well his tongue the solemn secret keeps 
Of the great peace he found afar, until, 
Death's writ of extradition to fulfill, 
They brought him, helpless, from that friendly 

zone 
To be a show and pastime in his own — 
A final opportunity to those 
Who fling with equal aim the stone and rose ; 
That at the living till his soul is freed, 
This at the body to conceal the deed ! 

Lone on his hill he 's lying to await 

What added honors may befit his state — 

The monument, the statue, or the arch 

(Where knaves may come to weep and dupes to 

march) 
Builded by clowns to brutalize the scenes 
His genius beautified. To get the means, 
His newly good traducers all are dunned 
For contributions to the conscience fund. 
If each subscribe (and pay) one cent 't will rear 
A structure taller than their tallest ear. 

Washington, May 4, 1903. 



178 TO MAUDE. 



TO MAUDE. 

Not as two errant spheres together grind 
With monstrous ruin in the vast of space, 
Destruction born of that malign embrace, 

Their hapless peoples all to death consigned — 

Not so when our intangible worlds of mind, 
Even mine and yours, each with its spirit race 
Of beings shadowy in form and face, 

Shall drift together on some blessed wind. 

No, in that marriage of gloom and light 
All miracles of beauty shall be wrought, 
Attesting a diviner faith than man's ; 

For all my sad-eyed daughters of the night 

Shall smile on your sweet seraphim of thought, 
Nor any jealous god forbid the banns. 



THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE. 179 



THE BIRTH OF VIRTUE. 

When, long ago, the young world circling flew 
Through wider reaches of a richer blue, 
New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest, 
The thoughts untold in one another's breast: 
Each wish displayed, and every passion learned — 
A look revealed them as a look discerned. 
But sating Time with clouds o'ercast their eyes ; 
Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies. 
A goddess then, emerging from the dust, 
Fair Virtue rose, the daughter of Distrust. 



i8o ST ON EM AN IN HEAVEN. 



STONEMAN IN HEAVEN. 

The Seraphs came to Christ, and said : "Behold ! 
The man, presumptuous and overbold, 
Who boasted that his mercy could excel 
Thine own, is dead and on his way to Hell." 

Gravely the Saviour asked : "What did he do 
To make his impious assertion true?" 

"He was a Governor, releasing all 

The vilest felons ever held in thrall. 

No other mortal, since the dawn of time, 

Has ever pardoned such a mass of crime !" 

Christ smiled benignly on the Seraphim : 
"Yet I am victor, for I pardon him." 



THE SCURRIL PRESS. 181 



THE SCURRIL PRESS. 

Tom Jonesmith {loquitur) : I've slept right through 
The night — a rather clever thing to do. 
How soundly women sleep (looks at his wife.) 
They 're all alike. The sweetest thing in life 
Is woman when she lies with folded tongue, 
Its toil completed and its day-song sung. 
( Thump ) That 's the morning paper. What a bore 
That it should be delivered at the door. 
There ought to be some expeditious way 
To get it to one. By this long delay 
The fizz gets off the news (a rap is heard). 
That's Jane, the housemaid; she's an early bird; 
She's brought it to the bedroom door, good soul. 
(Gets up and takes it in.) Upon the whole 
The system 's not so bad a one. What 's here ? 
Gad, if they 've not got after — listen dear 
(To sleeping wife) — young Gastrotheos! Well, 
If Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell 
She '11 shriek again — with laughter — seeing how 
They treated Gast. with her. Yet I'll allow 
'T is right if he goes dining at The Pup 
With Mrs. Thing. 

Wife (briskly, zuaking up) : 



i82 THE SCURRIL PRESS. 

With her ? The hussy ! Yes, it serves him right. 

Jonesmith (continuing to "seek the light") : 
What 's this about old Impycu ? That 's good ! 
Grip — that 's the funny man — says Impy should 
Be used as a decoy in shooting tramps. 
I knew old Impy when he had the "stamps" 
To buy us all out, and he was n't then 
So bad a chap to have about. Grip's pen 
Is just a tickler! — and the world, no doubt, 
Is better with it than it was without. 
What ? thirteen ladies — Jumping Jove ! we know 
Them nearly all ! — who gamble at a low 
And very shocking game of cards called "draw" ! 
O cracky, how they '11 squirm ! ha-ha ! haw-haw ! 
Let 's see what else (wife snores). Well, I '11 be blest ! 
A woman does n't understand a jest. 
Hello ! What, what ? the scurvy wretch proceeds 
To take a fling at me, condemn him! (reads) : 
Tom Jonesmith — my name 's Thomas, vulgar cad ! — 
Of the new Shavings Bank — the man 's gone mad ! 
That 's libelous ; I'll have him up for that — 
Has had his corns cut. Devil take the rat ! 
What business is 't of his, I 'd like to know ? 
He didn't have to cut them. Gods ! what low 
And scurril things our papers have become! 
You skim their contents and you get but scum. 



THE SCURRIL PRESS. 183 

Here, Mary, {waking wife) I 've been attacked 
In this vile sheet. By Jove, it is a fact ! 

Wife {reading it) : How wicked! Who do you 
Suppose 't was wrote it ? 

Jonesmith : Who? why, who 
But Grip, the so-called funny man — he wrote 
Me up because I 'd not discount his note. 
(Blushes like sunset at the hideous lie — 
He '11 think of one that 's better by and by — 
Throws down the paper on the floor, and treads 
A lively measure on it — kicks the shreds 
And patches all about the room, and still 
Performs his jig with unabated will.) 

Wife {warbling szveetly, like an Elfland horn) : 
Dear, do be careful of that second corn. 



184 STANLEY. 



STANLEY. 

Noting some great man's composition vile: 
A head of wisdom and a heart of guile, 
A will to conquer and a soul to dare, 
Joined to the manners of a dancing bear, 
Fools unaccustomed to the wide survey 
Of various Nature's compensating sway, 
Untaught to separate the wheat and chaff, 
To praise the one and at the other laugh, 
Yearn all in vain and impotently seek 
Some flawless hero upon whom to wreak 
The sycophantic worship of the weak. 
Not so the wise, from superstition free, 
Who find small pleasure in the bended knee ; 
Quick to discriminate 'twixt good and bad, 
And willing in the king to find the cad — 
No reason seen why genius and conceit, 
The power to dazzle and the will to cheat, 
The love of daring and the love of gin, 
Should not dwell, peaceful, in a single skin. 
To such, great Stanley, you 're a hero still, 
Despite your cradling in a tub for swill. 
Your peasant manners can't efface the mark 
Of light you drew across the Land of Dark. 



STANLEY. 185 

In you the extremes of character are wed, 
To serve the quick and villify the dead. 
Hero and clown ! O, man of many sides, 
The Muse of Truth adores you and derides, 
And sheds, impartial, the revealing ray 
Upon your head of gold and feet of clay. 



i86 ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX. 



ONE OF THE UNFAIR SEX. 

She stood at the ticket-seller's 

Serenely removing her glove, 
While hundreds of strugglers and yellers, 
And some that were good at a shove, 
Were clustered behind her like bats in 
a cave and unwilling to speak their 
love. 

At night she still stood at that window 
Endeavoring her money to reach ; 

The crowds right and left, how they sinned — O, 
How dreadfully sinned in their speech ! 
Ten miles either way they extended 
their lines, the historians teach. 

She stands there to-day — legislation 
Has failed to remove her. The trains 

No longer pull up at that station ; 
And over the ghastly remains 
Of the army that waited and died of 
old age fall the snows and the rains. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A COIN. 187 



THE LORD'S PRAYER ON A COIN. 

Upon this quarter-eagle's leveled face, 

The Lord's Prayer, legibly inscribed, I trace. 

" Our Father which " — the pronoun there is funny, 

And shows the scribe to have addressed the money- 

" Which art in Heaven "—an error this, no doubt : 

The preposition should be stricken out. 

Needless to quote ; I only have designed 

To praise the frankness of the pious mind 

Which thought it natural and right to join, 

With rare significancy, prayer and coin. 



188 A LACKING FACTOR. 



A LACKING FACTOR. 

You acted unwisely," I cried, " as you see 
By the outcome." He calmly eyed me: 
When choosing the course of my action," said he, 
" I had not the outcome to guide me." 



THE ROYAL JESTER. 189 



THE ROYAL JESTER. 

Once on a time, so ancient poets sing, 

There reigned in Godknowswhere a certain king. 

So great a monarch ne'er before was seen : 

He was a hero, even to his queen, 

In whose respect he held so high a place 

That none was higher, — nay, not even the ace. 

He was so just his Parliament declared 

Those subjects happy whom his laws had spared; 

So wise that none of the debating throng 

Had ever lived to prove him in the wrong ; 

So good that Crime his anger never feared, 

And Beauty boldly plucked him by the beard ; 

S© brave that if his army got a beating 

None dared to face him when he was retreating. 

This monarch kept a Fool to make his mirth, 

And loved him tenderly despite his worth. 

Prompted by what caprice I cannot say, 

He called the Fool before the throne one day 

And to that jester seriously said : 

" 111 abdicate, and you shall reign instead, 

While I, attired in motley, will make sport 

To entertain your Majesty and Court." 



igo THE ROYAL JESTER. 

'T was done and the Fool governed. He decreed 

The time of harvest and the time of seed ; 

Ordered the rains and made the weather clear, 

And had a famine every second year; 

Altered the calendar to suit his freak, 

Ordaining six whole holidays a week; 

Religious creeds and sacred books prepared ; 

Made war when angry and made peace when scared. 

New taxes he inspired ; new laws he made ; 

Drowned those who broke them, who observed them, 

flayed, 
In short, he ruled so well that all who 'd not 
Been starved, decapitated, hanged or shot 
Made the whole country with his praises ring, 
Declaring he was every inch a king ; 
And the High Priest averred 't was very odd 
If one so competent were not a god. 

Meantime, his master, now in motley clad, 
Wore such a visage, woeful, wan and sad, 
That some condoled with him as with a brother 
Who, having lost a wife, had got another. 
Others, mistaking his profession, often 
Approached him to be measured for a coffin. 
For years this highborn jester never broke 
The silence — he was pondering a joke. 
At last, one day, in cap-and-bells arrayed, 
He strode into the Council and displayed 



THE ROYAL JESTER. 191 

A long, bright smile, that glittered in the gloom 

Like a gilt epithet within a tomb. 

Posing his bauble like a leader's staff, 

To give the signal when (and why) to laugh, 

He brought it down with peremptory stroke 

And simultaneously cracked his joke! 

I can't repeat it, friends. I ne'er could school 
Myself to quote from any other fool : 
A jest, if it were worse than mine, would start 
My tears ; if better, it would break my heart. 
So, if you please, I '11 hold you but to state 
That royal Jester's melancholy fate. 

The insulted nation, so the story goes, 

Rose as one man — the very dead arose, 

Springing indignant from the riven tomb, 

And babes unborn leapt swearing from the womb ! 

All to the Council Chamber clamoring went, 

By rage distracted and on vengeance bent. 

In that vast hall, in due disorder laid, 

The tools of legislation were displayed, 

And the wild populace, its wrath to sate, 

Seized them and heaved them at the Jester's pate. 

Mountains of writing paper ; pools and seas 

Of ink, awaiting, to become decrees, 

Royal approval — and the same in stacks 

Lay ready for attachment, backed with wax ; 



192 THE ROYAL JESTER. 

Pens to make laws, erasers to amend them; 
With mucilage convenient to extend them ; 
Scissors for limiting their application, 
And acids to repeal all legislation — 
These, flung as missiles till the air was dense, 
Were most offensive weapons of offense, 
And by their aid the Fool was nigh destroyed. 
They ne'er had been so harmlessly employed. 
Whelmed underneath a load of legal cap, 
His mouth egurgitating ink on tap, 
His eyelids mucilaginously sealed, 
His fertile head by scissors made to yield 
Abundant harvestage of ears, his pelt, 
In every wrinkle and on every welt, 
Quickset with pencil-points from feet to gills 
And thickly studded with a pride of quills, 
The royal Jester in the dreadful strife 
Was made (in short) an editor for life! 

An idle tale, and yet a moral lurks 
In this as plainly as in greater works. 
I shall not give it birth : one moral here 
Would die of loneliness within a year. 



A CAREER IN LETTERS. 193 



A CAREER IN LETTERS. 

When Liberverm resigned the chair 
Of This or That in college, where 
For two decades he 'd gorged his brain 
With more than it could well contain, 
In order to relieve the stress 
He took to writing for the press. 
Then Pondronummus said, " I'll help 
This mine of talent to devel'p ;" 
And straightway bought with coin and 

credit 
The Thunder gust for him to edit. 

The great man seized the pen and ink 
And wrote so hard he could n't think ; 
Ideas grew beneath his fist 
And flew like falcons from his wrist. 
His pen shot sparks all kinds of ways 
Till all the rivers were ablaze, 
And where the coruscations fell 
Men uttered words I dare not spell. 

Eftsoons with corrugated brow, 
Wet towels bound about his pow, 



194 A CAREER IN LETTERS. 

Locked legs and failing appetite, 
He thought so hard he could n't write. 
His soaring fancies, chickenwise, 
Came home to roost and would n't rise. 
With dimmer light and milder heat 
His goose-quill staggered o'er the sheet, 
Then dragged, then stopped; the finish 

came — 
He could n't even write his name. 
The Thunder gust in three short weeks 
Had risen, roared, and split its cheeks. 
Said Pondronummus, " How unjust ! 
The storm I raised has laid my dust ! " 

When, Moneybagger, you have aught 
Invested in a vein of thought, 
Be sure you've purchased not, instead, 
That salted claim, a bookworm's head, 



THE FOLLOWING PAIR. 195 



THE FOLLOWING PAIR. 

O very remarkable mortal, 

What food is engaging your jaws 
And staining with amber their portal? 
" It's 'baccy I chaws." 

And why do you sway in your walking, 

To right and left many degrees, 
And hitch up your trousers when talking ? 
" I follers the seas." 

Great indolent shark in the rollers, 

Is " 'baccy," too, one of your faults?— 
You, too, display maculate molars. 
" I dines upon salts." 

Strange diet ! — intestinal pain it 

Is commonly given to nip. 
And how can you ever obtain it ? 
" I toilers the ship." 



196 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

" I beg you to note/' said a Man to a Goose, 

As he plucked from her bosom the plumage all loose, 

" That pillows and cushions of feathers and beds 

As warm as maids' hearts and as soft as their heads, 

Increase of life's comforts the general sum — 

Which raises the standard of living." "Come, come," 

The Goose said, impatiently, " tell me or cease, 

How that is of any advantage to geese." 

" What, what ! " said the man — " you are very obtuse ! 

Consumption no profit to those who produce? 

No good to accrue to Supply from a grand 

Progressive expansion, all round, of Demand? 

Luxurious habits no benefit bring 

To those who purvey the luxurious thing? 

Consider, I pray you, my friend, how the growth 

Of luxury promises — " " Promises," quoth 

The sufferer, " what ? — to what course is it pledged 

To pay me for being so often defledged ? " 

" Accustomed " — this notion the plucker expressed 

As he ripped out a handful of down from her breast — 

" To one kind of luxury, people soon yearn 

For others and ever for others in turn ; 

And the man who to-night on your feathers will rest, 

His mutton or bacon or beef to digest, 

His hunger to-morrow will wish to assuage 

By dining on goose with a dressing of sage." 



VANISHED AT COCK-CROW. 197 



VANISHED AT COCK-CROW. 

" 1 5 ve found the secret of your charm," I said, 
Expounding with complacency my guess. 

Alas ! the charm, even as I named it, fled, 
For all its secret was unconsciousness. 



198 THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 

I reckon that ye never knew, 

That dandy slugger, Tom Carew, 

He had a touch as light an' free 

As that of any honey-bee ; 

But where it lit there was n't much 

To jestify another touch. 

O, what a Sunday-school it was 

To watch him puttin' up his paws 

An' roominate upon their heft — 

Particular his holy left ! 

Tom was my style — that 's all I say ; 

Some others may be equal gay. 

What 's come of him ? Dunno, I 'm 

sure — 
He 's dead — which make his fate 

obscure. 
I only started in to clear 
One vital p'int in his career, 
Which is to say — afore he died 
He soiled his erming mighty snide. 
Ye see he took to politics 
And learnt them statesmen-fellers' 

tricks ; 



THE UNPARDONABLE SIN. 199 

Pulled wires, wore stovepipe hats, 

used scent, 
Just like he was the President ; 
Went to the Legislater ; spoke 
Right out agin the British yoke — 
But that was right. He let his hair 
Grow long to qualify for Mayor, 
An' once or twice he poked his snoot 
In Congress like a low galoot ! 
It had to come — no gent can hope 
To wrastle God agin the rope. 
Tom went from bad to wuss. Being 

dead, 
I s'pose it ought n't to be said, 
For sech inikities as flow 
From politics ain't fit to know ; 
But, if you think it 's actin' white 
To tell it — Thomas throwed a fight ! 



20O INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT. 



INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT. 

As time rolled on the whole world came to be 

A desolation and a darksome curse; 
And some one said : " The changes that you see 

In the fair frame of things, from bad to worse, 
Are wrought by strikes. The sun withdrew his glim- 
mer 
Because the moon assisted with her shimmer. 

" Then, when poor Luna, straining very hard, 
Doubled her light to serve a darkling world, 

He called her ' scab,' and meanly would retard 
Her rising : and at last the villain hurled 

A heavy beam which knocked her o'er the Lion 

Into the nebula of great O'Ryan. 

" The planets all had struck some time before, 

Demanding what they said were equal rights : 

Some pointing out that others had far more 
That a fair dividend of satellites. 

So all went out — though those the best provided, 

If they had dared, would rather have abided. 



INDUSTRIAL DISCONTENT. 201 

" The stars struck too — I think it was because 
The comets had more liberty than they, 

And were not bound by any hampering laws, 

While they were fixed; and there are those who 
say 

The comets' tresses nettled poor Altair, 

An aged orb that has n't any hair. 

" The earth 's the only one that is n't in 

The movement — I suppose because she 's watched 
With horror and disgust how her fair skin 

Her pranking parasites have fouled and blotched 
With blood and grease in every labor riot, 
When seeing any purse or throat to fly at." 



202 TEMPORA MUTANTUR. 



TEMPORA MUTANTUR. 

' The world is dull," I cried in my despair : 
" Its myths and fables are no longer fair. 

" Roll back thy centuries, O Father Time : 
To Greece transport me in her golden prime. 

" Give back the beautiful old Gods again — 
The sportive Nymphs, the Dryad's jocund 
train, 

" Pan piping on his reeds, the Naiades, 
The Sirens singing by the sleepy seas. 

" Nay, show me but a Gorgon and I'll dare 
To lift mine eyes to her peculiar hair 

"(The fatal horrors of her snaky pate, 
That stiffen men into a stony state) 

" And die — erecting, as my soul goes hence, 
A statue of myself, without expense." 



TEMPORA MUTANTUR. 203 

Straight as I spoke I heard the voice of Fate : 
" Look up, my lad, the Gorgon sisters wait." 

Raising my eyes, I saw Medusa stand, 
Stheno, Euryale, on either hand. 

I gazed unpetrified and unappalled — 
The girls had aged and were entirely bald ! 



204 CONTENTMENT. 



CONTENTMENT. 

Sleep fell upon my senses and I dreamed 

Long years had circled since my life had fled. 

The world was different, and all things seemed 
Remote and strange, like noises to the dead. 
And one great Voice there was ; and something said 

" Posterity is speaking — rightly deemed 

Infallible :" and so I gave attention, 

Hoping Posterity my name would mention. 

" Illustrious Spirit," said the Voice, " appear! 
While we confirm eternally thy fame, 

Before our dread tribunal answer, here, 
Why do no statues celebrate thy name, 
No monuments thy services proclaim ? 

Why did not thy contemporaries rear 

To thee some schoolhouse or memorial college? 

It looks almighty queer, you must acknowledge." 

Up spake I hotly : " That is where you err ! " 
But some one thundered in my ear : " You shan't 

Be interrupting these proceedings, sir; 

The question was addressed to General Grant." 



CONTENTMENT. 205 

Some other things were spoken which I can't 
Distinctly now recall, but I infer, 
By certain flushings of my cheeks and forehead, 
Posterity's environment is torrid. 

Then heard I (this was in a dream, remark) 
Another Voice, clear, comfortable, strong, 
As Grant's great shade, replying from the dark, 
Said in a tone that rang the earth along, 
And thrilled the senses of the Judges' throng : 
" I 'd rather you would question why, in park 
And street, my monuments were not erected 
Than why they were." Then, waking, I reflected. 



206 THE NEW ENOCH. 



THE NEW ENOCH. 

Enoch Arden was an able 

Seaman ; hear of his mishap — 

Not in wild mendacious fable, 
As 't was told by t' other chap ; 

For I hold it is a youthful 

Indiscretion to tell lies, 
And the writer that is truthful 

Has the reader that is wise. 

Enoch Arden, able seaman, 

On an isle was cast away, 
And before he was a freeman 

Time had touched him up with gray. 

Long he searched the fair horizon, 
Seated on a mountain top ; 

Vessel ne'er he set his eyes on 
That would undertake to stop. 

Seeing that his sight was growing 
Dim and dimmer, day by day, 

Enoch said he must be going. 
So he rose and went away — 



THE NEW ENOCH. 207 

Went away and so continued 

Till he lost his lonely isle : 
Mr. Arden was so sinewed 

He could row for many a mile. 

Compass he had not, nor sextant, 

To direct him o'er the sea : 
Ere 't was known that he was extant, 

At his widow's home was he. 

When he saw the hills and hollows 
And the streets he could but know, 

He gave utterance as follows 
To the sentiments below : 

" Blast my tarry toplights ! (shiver, 

Too, my timbers!) but, I say, 
W'at a larruk to diskiver, 

I have lost me blessid way ! 

" W'at, alas, would be my bloomin' 

Fate if Philip now I see, 
Which I lammed? — or my old 'oman, 

Which ha« frequent basted me? '' 

Scenes of childhood swam around him 

At the thought of such a lot : 
In a swoon his Annie found him 

And conveyed him to her cot. 



208 THE NEW ENOCH. 

'T was the very house, the garden, 
Where their honeymoon was passed : 

T was the place where Mrs. Arden 
Would have mourned him to the last. 

Ah, what grief she 'd known without him ! 

Now what tears of joy she shed! 
Enoch Arden looked about him : 

" Shanghaied ! " — that was all he said. 



DISAVOWAL. 209 



DISAVOWAL. 

Two bodies are lying in Phoenix Park, 
Grim and bloody and stiff and stark, 
And a Land League man with averted 

eye 
Crosses himself as he hurries by. 
And he says to his conscience under his 

breath : 
" I have had no hand in this deed of 

death ! " 

A Fenian, making a circuit wide 
And passing them by on the other side, 
Shudders and crosses himself and cries : 
" Who says that I did it, he lies, he lies ! " 

Gingerly stepping across the gore, 
Pat Satan comes after the two before, 
Makes, in a solemnly comical way, 
The sign of the cross and is heard to 

say : 
" O dear, what a terrible sight to see, 
For babes like them and a saint like me ! 
1882. 



2io AN AVERAGE. 



AN AVERAGE. 

I ne'er could be entirely fond 
Of any maiden who 's a blonde, 
And no brunette that e'er I saw- 
Had charms my heart's whole 
warmth to draw. 

Yet sure no girl was ever made 
Just half of light and half of 

shade. 
And so, this happy mean to get, 
I love a blonde and a brunette. 



WOMAN. 21 r 



WOMAN. 
Study good women and ignore the rest, 
For he best knows the sex who knows the best. 



212 INCURABLE. 



INCURABLE. 

From pride, joy, hate, greed, melan- 
choly — 
From any kind of vice, or folly, 
Bias, propensity or passion 
That is in prevalence and fashion, 
Save one, the sufferer or lover 
May, by the grace of God, recover : 
Alone that spiritual tetter, 
The zeal to make creation better, 
Glows still immedicably warmer. 
Who knows of a reformed reformer ? 



THE PUN. 213 



THE PUN. 

Hail, peerless Pun ! thou last and best, 
Most rare and excellent bequest 
Of dying idiot to the wit 
He died of, rat-like, in a pit ! 

Thyself disguised, in many a way 
Thou let'st thy sudden splendor play, 
Adorning all where'er it turns, 
As the revealing bull's-eye burns, 
Of the dim thief, and plays its trick 
Upon the lock he means to pick. 

Yet sometimes, too, thou dost appear 

As boldly as a brigadier 

Tricked out with marks and signs, all 

o'er, 
Of rank, brigade, division, corps, 
To show by every means he can 
An officer is not a man ; 
Or naked, with a lordly swagger, 
Proud as a cur without a wagger, 
Who says : " See simple worth prevail- 
All dog, sir— not a bit of tail ! " 



214 THE PUN. 

'T is then men give thee loudest welcome, 
As if thou wert a soul from Hell come. 

O obvious Pun ! thou hast the grace 
Of skeleton clock without a case — 
With all its boweling displayed, 
And all its organs on parade. 

Dear Pun, you 're common ground of 

bliss, 
Where Punch and I can meet and kiss ; 
Than thee my wit can stoop no low'r — 
No higher his does ever soar. 



A PARTISAN'S PROTEST. 215 



A PARTISAN'S PROTEST. 

O statesmen, what would you be at, 

With torches, flags and bands? 
You make me first throw up my hat, 
And then my hands. 



216 TO NANINE. 



TO NANINE. 

Dear, if I never saw your face again ; 
If all the music of your voice were mute 
As that of a forlorn and broken lute ; 
If only in my dreams I might attain 
The benediction of your touch, how vain 
Were Faith to justify the old pursuit 
Of happiness, or Reason to confute 
The pessimist philosophy of pain. 
Yet Love not altogether is unwise, 

For still the wind would murmur in the 
corn, 
And still the sun would splendor all 

the mere; 
And I — I could not, dearest, 
choose but hear 
Your voice upon the breeze and see your eyes 
Shine in the glory of the summer morn. 



VICE VERSA. 217 



VICE VERSA. 



Down in the state of Maine, the story goes, 
A woman, to secure a lapsing pension, 

Married a soldier— though the good Lord knows 
That very common act scarce calls for mention. 

What makes it worthy to be writ and read — 

The man she married had been nine hours dead ! 

Now, marrying a corpse is not an act 

Familiar to our daily observation, 
And so I crave her pardon if the fact 

Suggests this interesting speculation : 
Should some mischance restore the man to life 
Would she be then a widow, or a wife ? 

Let casuists contest the point ; I 'm not 

Disposed to grapple with so great a matter. 

'T would tie my thinker in a double knot 
And drive me staring mad as any hatter— 

Though I submit that hatters are, in fact, 

Sane, and all other human beings cracked. 

Small thought have I of Destiny or Chance ; 

Luck seems to me the same thing as Intention ; 
In metaphysics I could ne'er advance, 

And think it of the Devil's own invention. 
Enough of joy to know though when I wed 
I must be married, yet I may be dead. 



218 A BLACK-LIST. 



A BLACK-LIST. 

' Resolved that we will post," the tradesmen 

say, 
" All names of debtors who do never pay." 
"Whose shall be first?" inquires the ready 

scribe — 
" Who are the chiefs of the marauding 

tribe?" 
Lo ! high Parnassus, lifting from the plain, 
Upon his hoary peak, a noble fane ! 
Within that temple all the names are scrolled 
Of village bards upon a slab of gold ; 
To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire, 
And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire. 
Yet not to total shame those names devote, 
But add in mercy this explaining note : 
"These cheat because the law makes theft a 

crime, 
And they obey all laws but laws of rhyme." 



A BEQUEST TO MUSIC. 219 



A BEQUEST TO MUSIC. 

" Let music flourish ! " So he said and died. 

Hark ! ere he 's gone the minstrelsy begins : 
The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide, 
Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide— 

The grand old lawyers, chinning on their 
chins ! 



220 AUTHORITY. 



AUTHORITY. 

" Authority, authority ! " they shout 

Whose minds, not large enough to hold a doubt, 

Some chance opinion ever entertain, 

By dogma billeted upon their brain. 

" Ha ! " they exclaim with choreatic glee, 

" Here 's Dabster if you won't give in to me — 

Dabster, sir, Dabster, to whom all men look 

With reverence ! " The fellow wrote a book. 

It matters not that many another wight 

Has thought more deeply, could more wisely write 

On t' other side — that you yourself possess 

Knowledge where Dabster did but faintly guess. 

God help you if ambitious to persuade 

The fools who take opinion ready-made 

And " recognize authorities." Be sure 

No tittle of their folly they '11 abjure 

For all that you can say. But write it down, 

Publish and die and get a great renown — 

Faith ! how they '11 snap it up, misread, misquote, 

Swear that they had a hand in all you wrote, 

And ride your fame like monkeys on a goat! 



THE PSORIAD. 221 



THE PSORIAD. 

The King of Scotland, years and years ago, 
Convened his courtiers in a gallant row 
And thus addressed them : 

" Gentle sirs, from you 
Abundant counsel I have had, and true: 
What laws to make to serve the public weal ; 
What laws of Nature's making to repeal ; 
What old religion is the only true one, 
And what the greater merit of some new one ; 
What friends of yours my favor have forgot ; 
Which of your enemies against me plot. 
In harvests ample to augment my treasures, 
Behold the fruits of your sagacious measures ! 
The punctual planets, to their periods just, 
Attest your wisdom and approve my trust. 
Lo ! the reward your shining virtues bring : 
The grateful placemen bless their useful king ! 
But while you quafl the nectar of my favor 
I mean somewhat to modify its flavor 
By just infusing a peculiar dash 
Of tonic bitter in the calabash. 
And should you, too abstemious, disdain it, 
Egad ! I'll hold your noses till you drain it ! 



222 THE PSORIAD. 

" You know, you dogs, your master long has felt 

A keen distemper in the royal pelt — 

A testy, superficial irritation, 

Brought home, I fancy, from some foreign 

nation. 
For this a thousand simples you 've pre- 
scribed — 
Unguents external, draughts to be imbibed. 
You 've plundered Scotland of its plants, the 

seas 
You 've ravished, and despoiled the Hebrides, 
To brew me remedies which, in probation, 
Were sovereign only in their application. 
In vain, and eke in pain, have I applied 
Your flattering unctions to my soul and hide : 
Physic and hope have been my daily food — 
I've swallowed treacle by the holy rood ! 

" Your wisdom, which sufficed to guide the year 
And tame the seasons in their mad career, 
When set to higher purposes has failed me 
And added anguish to the ills that ailed me. 
Nor that alone, but each ambitious leech 
His rivals' skill has labored to impeach 
By hints equivocal in secret speech. 
For years, to conquer our respective broils, 
We 've plied each other with pacific oils. 



THE PSORIAD. 223 

In vain : your turbulence is unallayed, 
My flame unquenched; your rioting unstayed; 
My life so wretched from your strife to save it 
That death were welcome did I dare to brave it. 
With zeal inspired by your intemperate 

pranks, 
My subjects muster in contending ranks. 
Those fling their banners to the startled 

breeze 
To champion some royal ointment ; these 
The standard of some royal purge display 
And 'neath that ensign wage a wasteful fray ! 
Brave tongues are thundering from sea to sea, 
Torrents of sweat roll reeking o'er the lea ! 
My people perish in their martial fear, 
And rival bagpipes cleave the royal ear ! 

"Now, caitiffs, tremble, for this very hour 
Your injured sovereign shall assert his power! 
Behold this lotion, carefully compound 
Of all the poisons you for me have found — 
Of biting washes such as tan the skin, 
And drastic drinks to vex the parts within. 
What aggravates an ailment will produce — 
I mean to rub you with this dreadful juice! 
Divided counsels you no more shall hatch — 
At last you shall unanimously scratch. 



224 THE PSORIAD. 

Kneel, villains, kneel, and doff your shirts — 

God bless us ! 
They '11 seem, when you resume them, robes 

of Nessus ! " 

The sovereign ceased, and, sealing what he 

spoke, 
From Arthur's Seat* confirming thunders 

broke. 
The conscious culprits, to their fate resigned, 
Sank to their knees, all piously inclined. 
This act, from high Ben Lomond where she 

floats, 
The thrifty goddess, Caledonia, notes. 
Glibly as nimble sixpence, down she tilts 
Headlong, and ravishes away their kilts, 
Tears off each plaid and all their shirts dis- 
closes, 
Removes each shirt and their broad backs 

exposes. 
The king advanced — then cursing fled amain 
Dashing the phial to the stony plain 
(Where 't straight became a fountain brimming 

o'er, 
Whence Father Tweed derives his liquid store) 
For lo ! already on each back sans stitch 
The red sign manual of the Rosy Witch ! 

* A famous height overlooking Edinburgh. 



ONEIROMANCY. 225 



ONEIROMANCY. 

I fell asleep and dreamed that I 
Was flung, like Vulcan, from the sky ; 
Like him was lamed — another part : 
His leg was crippled and my heart. 
I woke in time to see my love 
Conceal a letter in her glove. 



220 PEACE. 



PEACE. 

When lion and lamb have together lain down 

Spectators cry out, all in chorus ; 
"The lamb does n't shrink nor the lion frown — 

A miracle 's working before us ! " 

But 't is patent why Hot-head his wrath holds in, 
And Faint-heart her terror and loathing ; 

For the one 's but an ass in a lion's skin, 
The other a wolf in sheep's clothing. 



THANKSG1 VING. 227 



THANKSGIVING. 
The Superintendent of an Almshouse. A Pauper. 

Superintendent : 

So you 're unthankful — you '11 not eat the bird ? 
You sit about the place all day and gird. 
I understand you '11 not attend the ball 
That 's to be given to-night in Pauper Hall. 

Pauper : 
Why, that is true, precisely as you 've heard : 
I have no teeth and I will eat no bird. 

Superintendent : 

Ah! see how good is Providence. Because 
Of teeth He has denuded both your jaws 
The fowl 's made tender ; you can overcome it 
By suction; or at least — well, you can gum it, 
Attesting thus the dictum of the preachers 
That -Providence is good to all His creatures — 
Turkeys excepted. Come, ungrateful friend, 
If our Thanksgiving dinner you '11 attend 
You shall say grace — ask God to bless at least 
The soft and liquid portions of the feast. 



228 THANKSGIVING. 

Pauper. : 
Without those teeth my speech is rather thick — 
He '11 hardly understand Gum Arabic. 
No, I '11 not dine to-day. As to the ball, 
'T is known to you that I 've no legs at all. 
I had the gout — hereditary ; so, 
As it could not be cornered in my toe 
They cut my legs off in the fond belief 
That shortening me would make my anguish brief. 
Lacking my legs I could not prosecute 
With any good advantage a pursuit; 
And so, because my father chose to court 
Heaven's favor with his ortolans and Port 
(Thanksgiving every day!) the Lord supplied 
Saws for my legs, an almshouse for my pride 
And, once a year, a bird for my inside. 
No, I '11 not dance — my light fantastic toe 
Took to its heels some twenty years ago. 
Some small repairs would be required for putting 
My feelings on a saltatory footing. 

{Sings) 

O the legless man 's an unhappy chap — 

Tum-hi, tum-hi, tum-he o'haddy. 
The favors o' fortune fall not in his lap — 

Tum-hi, tum-he e die-do hum. 
The plums of office avoid his plate 



THANKSGIVING. 229 

No matter how much he may stump the State — 

Tum-hi, ho-heeee. 
The grass grows never beneath his feet, 
But he cannot hope to make both ends meet — 

Tum-hi. 
With a gleeless eye and a somber heart, 
He plays the role of his mortal part : 
Wholly himself he can never be. 
O, a soleless corporation is he ! 
Turn. 

Superintendent : 
The chapel bell is calling, thankless friend, 
Balls you may not, but church you shall, attend. 
Some recognition cannot be denied 
To the great mercy that has turned aside 
The sword of death from us and let it fall 
Upon the people's necks in Montreal; 
That spared our city, steeple, roof and dome, 
And drowned the Texans out of house and home ; 
Blessed all our continent with peace, to flood 
The Balkan with a cataclysm of blood. 
Compared with blessings of so high degree, 
Your private woes look mighty small — to me. 



230 L'AUDACE. 



L'AUDACE. 

Daughter of God ! Audacity divine — 

Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign — 

Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool, 

Not thine of idiots the vocal drool : 

Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass, 

Presumption, actuates the charging ass. 

Sky-born Audacity ! of thee who sings 

Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings ; 

The notes should mount on pinions true and strong, 

For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song, 

Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng! 

Alas ! with reeling heads and wavering tails, 

They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails; 

The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs 

Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums. 

Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand 

For stronger voices and a harder hand : 

Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire, 

And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire ! 



THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT. 231 



THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT. 

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, 

The wisest and the best of men, 

Betook him to the place where sat 

With folded feet upon a mat 

Of precious stones beneath a palm, 

In sweet and everlasting calm, 

That ancient and immortal gent, 

The God of Rational Content. 

As tranquil and unmoved as Fate, 

The deity reposed in state, 

With palm to palm and sole to sole, 

And beaded breast and beetling jowl, 

And belly spread upon his thighs, 

And costly diamonds for eyes. 

As Chunder Sen approached and knelt 

To show the reverence he felt; 

Then beat his head upon the sod 

To prove his fealty to the god ; 

And then by gestures signified 

The other sentiments inside ; 

The god's right eye (as Chunder Sen, 

The wisest and the best of men, 



232 THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT. 

Half -fancied) grew by just a thought 
More narrow than it truly ought. 
Yet still that prince of devotees, 
Persistent upon bended knees 
And elbows bored into the earth, 
Declared the god's exceeding worth, 
And begged his favor. Then at last, 
Within that cavernous and vast 
Thoracic space was heard a sound 
Like that of water underground — 
A gurgling note that found a vent 
At mouth of that Immortal Gent 
In such a chuckle as no ear 
Had e'er been privileged to hear ! 

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, 
The wisest, greatest, best of men, 
Heard with a natural surprise 
That mighty midriff improvise. 
And greater yet the marvel was 
When from between those massive jaws 
Fell words to make the views more plain 
The god was pleased to entertain : 
"Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen," 
So ran the rede in speech of men — 
"Foremost of mortals in assent 
To creed of Rational Content, 



THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT. 233 

Why come you here to impetrate 

A blessing on your scurvy pate? 

Can you not rationally be 

Content without disturbing me? 

Can you not take a hint — a wink — 

Of what of all this rot I think? 

Is laughter lost upon you quite, 

To check you in your pious rite ? 

What ! know you not we gods protest 

That all religion is a jest? 

You take me seriously? — you 

About me make a great ado 

(When I but wish to be alone) 

With attitudes supine and prone, 

With genuflexions and with prayers, 

And putting on of solemn airs, 

To draw my mind from the survey 

Of Rational Content away ! 

Learn once for all, if learn you can, 

This truth, significant to man : 

A pious person is by odds 

The one most hateful to the gods." 

Then stretching forth his great right hand, 

Which shadowed all that sunny land, 

That deity bestowed a touch 

Which Chunder Sen not overmuch 

Enjoyed — a touch divine that made 

The sufferer hear stars ! They played 



234 THE GOD'S VIEW-POINT. 

And sang as on Creation's morn 
When spheric harmony was born. 

Cheeta Raibama Chunder Sen, 
The most astonished man of men, 
Fell straight asleep, and when he woke 
The deity nor moved nor spoke, 
But sat beneath that ancient palm 
In sweet and everlasting calm. 



THE 2ESTHETES. 235 



THE ESTHETES. 

The lily cranks, the lily cranks, 

The loppy, loony lasses ! 
They multiply in rising ranks 
To execute their solemn pranks, 

They moon along in masses. 
Blow, sweet lily, in the shade ! O, 
Sunflower decorate the dado ! 

The maiden ass, the maiden ass, 

The tall and tailless jenny! 
In limp attire as green as grass, 
She stands, a monumental brass, 

The one of one too many. 
Blow, sweet lily, in the shade ! O, 
Sunflower decorate the dado ! 



236 JULY FOURTH. 



JULY FOURTH. 

God said : " Let there be noise." The 

dawning fire 
Of Independence gilded every spire. 



WITH MINE OWN PETARD. 237 



WITH MINE OWN PETARD. 

Time was the local poets sang their songs 
Beneath their breath in terror of the thongs 
I snapped about their shins. Though mild the stroke 
Bards, like the conies, are " a feeble folk," 
Fearing all noises but the one they make 
Themselves — at which all other mortals quake. 
Now from their cracked and disobedient throats, 
Like rats from sewers scampering, their notes 
Pour forth to move, where'er the season serves, 
If not our legs to dance, at least our nerves ; 
As once a ram's-horn solo maddened all 
The sober-minded stones in Jerich's wall. 
A year's exemption from the critic's curse 
Mends the bard's courage but impairs his verse. 
Thus poolside frogs, when croaking in the night, 
Are frayed to silence by a meteor's flight, 
Or by the sudden plashing of a stone 
From some adjacent cottage garden thrown, 
But straight renew the song with double din 
Whene'er the light goes out or man goes in. 
Shall I with arms unbraced (my casque unlatched, 
My falchion pawned, my buckler, too, attached) 



238 WITH MINE OWN PETARD. 

Resume the cuishes and the broad cuirass, 
Accomplishing my body all in brass, 
And arm in battle royal to oppose 
A village poet singing through the nose, 
Or strolling troubadour his lyre who strums 
With clumsy hand whose fingers all are thumbs ? 
No, let them rhyme ; I fought them once before 
And stilled their songs — but, Satan ! how they 

swore ! — 
Cuffed them upon the mouth whene'er their throats 
They cleared for action with their sweetest notes ; 
Twisted their ears (they 'd oft tormented mine) 
And damned them roundly all along the line ; 
Clubbed the whole crew from the Parnassian 

slopes, 
A wreck of broken heads and broken hopes ! 
What gained I so ? I feathered every curse 
Launched at the village bards with lilting verse. 
The town approved and christened me (to show its 
High admiration) Chief of Local Poets! 



CONSTANCY. 239 



CONSTANCY. 

Dull were the days and sober, 

The mountains were brown and bare, 

For the season was sad October 
And a dirge was in the air. 

The mated starlings flew over 
To the isles of the southern sea. 

She wept for her warrior lover — 
Wept and exclaimed: "Ah, me! 

" Long years have I mourned my darling 

In his battle-bed at rest ; 
And it 's O, to be a starling, 

With a mate to share my nest ! " 

The angels pitied her sorrow, 

Restoring her warrior's life; 
And he came to her arms on the morrow 

To claim her and take her to wife. 

An aged lover — a portly, 

Bald lover, a trifle too stiff, 
With manners that would have been courtly, 

And would have been graceful, if — 



240 CONSTANCY. 

If the angels had only restored him 

Without the additional years 
That had passed since the enemy bored him 

To death with their long, sharp spears. 

As it was, he bored her, and she rambled 
Away with her father's young groom, 

And the old lover smiled as he ambled 
Contentedly back to the tomb. 



SIRES AND SONS. 241 



SIRES AND SONS. 

Wild wanton Luxury lays waste the land 
With difficulty tilled by Thrift's hard hand ! 
Then dies the State ! — and, in its carcass found, 
The millionaires, all maggot-like, abound. 
Alas ! was it for this that Warren died, 
And Arnold sold himself to t' other side, 
Stark piled at Bennington his British dead, 
And Gates at Camden, Lee at Monmouth, fled?- 
For this that Perry did the foeman fleece, 
And Hull surrender to preserve the peace? 
Degenerate countrymen, renounce, I pray, 
The slothful ease, the luxury, the gay 
And gallant trappings of this idle life, 
And be more fit for one another's wife. 



242 A CHALLENGE. 



A CHALLENGE. 

A bull imprisoned in a stall 

Broke boldly the confining wall, 

And found himself, when out of bounds, 

Within a washerwoman's grounds. 

Where, hanging on a line to dry, 

A crimson skirt inflamed his eye. 

With bellowings that woke the dead, 

He bent his formidable head, 

With pointed horns and gnarly forehead ; 

Then, planting firm his shoulders horrid, 

Began, with rage made half insane, 

To paw the arid earth amain, 

Flinging the dust upon his flanks 

In desolating clouds and banks, 

The while his eyes' uneasy white 

Betrayed his doubt what foe the bright 

Red tent concealed, perchance, from sight. 

The garment, which, all undismayed, 

Had never paled a single shade, 

Now found a tongue — a dangling sock, 

Left carelessly inside the smock : 

" I must insist, my gracious liege, 

That you '11 be pleased to raise the siege : 



A CHALLENGE. 243 

My colors I will never strike. 
I know your sex — you 're all alike. 
Some small experience I 've had — 
You 're not the first I 've driven mad." 



244 T W0 SHOWS. 



TWO SHOWS. 

The showman (blessing in a thousand shapes!) 

Parades a " School of Educated Apes ! " 

Small education 's needed, I opine, 

Or native wit, to make a monkey shine ; 

The brute exhibited has naught to do 

But ape the larger apes who come to view — 

The hoodlum with his horrible grimace, 

Long upper lip and furtive, shuffling pace, 

Significant reminders of the time 

When hunters, not policemen, made him climb; 

The lady loafer with her draggling " trail," 

That free translation of an ancient tail ; 

The sand-lot quadrumane in hairy suit, 

Whose heels are thumbs perverted by the boot; 

The painted actress throwing down the gage 

To elder artists of the sylvan stage, 

Proving that in the time of Noah's flood 

Two ape-skins held her whole profession's blood ; 

The critic waiting, like a hungry pup, 

To write the school — perhaps to eat it — up, 

As chance or luck occasion may reveal 



TWO SHOWS. 245 

To earn a dollar or maraud a meal. 
To view the school of apes these creatures go, 
Unconscious that themselves are half the show. 
These, if the simian his course but trim 
To copy them as they have copied him, 
Will call him "educated." Of a verity 
There 's much to learn by study of posterity. 



246 A POETS HOPE. 



A POET'S HOPE. 

*T was a weary-looking mortal, and he wandered near 
the portal 
Of the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead. 
He was pale and worn exceeding and his manner was 
unheeding, 
As if it could not matter what he did nor what he 
said. 

" Sacred stranger " — I addressed him with a rever- 
ence befitting 
The austere, unintermitting, dread solemnity he 
wore; 
'T is the custom, too, prevailing in that vicinage when 
hailing 
One who possibly may be a person lately " gone be- 
fore"— 

" Sacred stranger, much I ponder on your evident 
dejection, 
But my carefulest reflection leaves the riddle still 
unread. 
How do you yourself explain your dismal tendency to 
wander 
By the melancholy City of the Discontented Dead ? " 



A POETS HOPE. 247 

Then that solemn person, pausing in the march that 
he was making, 
Roused himself as if awaking, fixed his dull and 
stony eye 
On my countenance and, slowly, like a priest devout 
and holy, 
Chanted in a mournful monotone the following 
reply : 

" O my brother, do not fear it ; I 'm no disembodied 
spirit — 
I am Lampton, the Slang Poet, with a price upon 
my head. 
I am watching by this portal for some late lamented 
mortal 
To arise in his disquietude and leave his earthy bed. 

"Then I hope to take possession and pull in the earth 
above me 
And, renouncing my profession, ne'er be heard of 
any more. 
For there's not a soul to love me and no living thing 
respects me, 
Which so painfully affects me that I fain would 'go 
before/ " 

Then I felt a deep compassion for the gentleman's 
dejection, 



248 A POET'S HOPE. 

For privation of affection would refrigerate a frog. 
So I said : " If nothing human, and if neither man nor 

woman 
Can appreciate the fashion of your merit — buy a 

dog." 



THE WOMAN AND THE DEVIL. 249 



THE WOMAN AND THE DEVIL. 

When Man and Woman had been made, 

All but the disposition, 
The Devil to the workshop strayed, 

And somehow gained admission. 

The Master rested from his work, 

For this was on a Sunday, 
The man was snoring like a Turk, 

Content to wait till Monday. 

" Too bad ! " the Woman cried ; "Oh, why, 
Does slumber not benumb me? 

A disposition ! Oh, I die 

To know if 't will become me ! " 

The Adversary said : " No doubt 
'T will be extremely fine, ma'am, 

Though sure 't is long to be without — 
I beg to lend you mine, ma'am." 

The Devil's disposition when 

She 'd got, of course she wore it, 

For she 'd no disposition then, 
Nor now has, to restore it. 



250 TWO ROGUES. 



TWO ROGUES. 

Dim, grim, and silent as a ghost, 

The sentry occupied his post, 

To all the stirrings of the night 

Alert of ear and sharp of sight. 

A sudden something — sight or sound, 

About, above, or underground, 

He knew not what, nor where — ensued, 

Thrilling the sleeping solitude. 

The soldier cried : " Halt ! Who goes there ? " 

The answer came : " Death — in the air." 

" Advance, Death — give the countersign, 

Or perish if you cross that line ! " 

To change his tone Death thought it wise — 

Reminded him they 'd been allies 

Against the Russ, the Frank, the Turk, 

In many a bloody bit of work. 

" In short," said he, " in every weather 

We Ve soldiered, you and I, together." 

The sentry would not let him pass. 

" Go back," he growled, " you tiresome ass — 

Go back and rest till the next war, 

Nor kill by methods all abhor : 



TWO ROGUES. 251 

Miasma, famine, filth and vice, 
With plagues of locusts, plagues of lice, 
Foul food, foul water, and foul gases, 
Rank exhalations from morasses. 
If you employ such low allies 
This business you will vulgarize. 
Renouncing then the field of fame 
To wallow in a waste of shame, 
I '11 prostitute my strength and lurk 
About the country doing work — 
These hands to labor I '11 devote, 
Nor cut, by Heaven, another throat ! " 



252 BEECHER. 



BEECHER. 

So, Beecher 's dead. His was a great soul, too — 
Great as a giant organ is, whose reeds 
Hold in them all the souls of all the creeds 

That man has ever taught and never knew. 

When on this mighty instrument He laid 

His hand Who fashioned it, our common moan 
Was suppliant in its thundering. The tone 

Grew more vivacious when the Devil played. 

No more those luring harmonies we hear, 
And lo ! already men forget the sound. 
They turn, retracing all the dubious ground 

O'er which it led them, pigwise, by the ear. 



NOT GUILTY. 253 



NOT GUILTY. 

"I saw your charms in another's arms,' 

Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil ; 

" And he kissed you fair as he held you there, 
A willing bird in a serpent's coil ! " 

The maid looked up from the cinctured cup 
Wherein she was crushing the berries red, 

Pain and surprise in her honest eyes— 
" It was only one o' those gods," she said. 



254 PRESENTIMENT. 



PRESENTIMENT. 

With saintly grace and reverent tread, 
She walked among the graves with me ; 
Her every foot-fall seemed to be 

A benediction on the dead. 

The guardian spirit of the place 

She seemed, and I some ghost forlorn 
Surprised in the untimely morn 

She made with her resplendent face. 

Moved by some waywardness of will, 
Three paces from the path apart 
She stepped and stood — my prescient heart 

Was stricken with a passing chill. 

The folk-lore of the years agone 

Remembering, I smiled and thought: 
" Who shudders suddenly at naught, 

His grave is being trod upon." 

But now I know that it was more 

Than idle fancy. O, my sweet, 

I did not think such little feet 
Could make a buried heart so sore ! 



A STUDY IN GRAY. 255 



A STUDY IN GRAY. 

I step from the door with a shiver 

(This fog is uncommonly cold) 
And ask myself : What did I give her ?— 

The maiden a trifle gone-old, 

With the head of gray hair that was gold. 

Ah, well, I suppose 't was a dollar, 
And doubtless the change is correct, 

Though it 's odd that it seems so much smaller 
Than what I'da right to expect. 
But you pay when you dine, I reflect. 

So I walk up the street — 't was a saunter 
A score of years back, when I strolled 

From this door ; and our talk was all banter 
Those days when her hair was of gold, 
And the sea-fog less searching and cold. 

I button my coat (for I 'm shaken, 
And fevered a trifle, and flushed 

With the wine that I ought to have taken,) 
Time was, at this coat I 'd have blushed, 
Though truly, 't is cleverly brushed. 



256 A STUDY IN GRAY. 

A score ? Why, that is n't so very 
Much time to have lost from a life. 

There 's reason enough to be merry : 
I Ve not fallen down in the strife, 
But marched with the drum and the fife. 

If Hope, when she lured me and beckoned, 
Had pushed at my shoulders instead, 

And Fame, on whose favors I reckoned, 
Had laureled the worthiest head, 
I could garland the years that are dead. 

Believe me, I 've held my own, mostly 
Through all of this wild masquerade ; 

But somehow the fog is more ghostly 
To-night, and the skies are more grayed, 
Like the locks of the restaurant maid. 

If ever I 'd fainted and faltered 
I 'd fancy this did but appear ; 

But the climate, I 'm certain, has altered — 
Grown colder and more austere 
Than it was in that earlier year. 

The lights, too, are strangely unsteady, 
That lead from the street to the quay. 

I think they '11 go out — and I 'm ready 
To follow. Out there in the sea 
The fog-bell is calling to me. 



A PARADOX. 257 



A PARADOX. 

" If life were not worth having," said the preacher, 
" 'T would have in suicide one pleasant feature." 
" An error," said the pessimist, " you 're making : 
What 's not worth having cannot be worth taking." 



258 FOR MERIT. 



FOR MERIT. 

To Parmentier Parisians raise 
A statue fine and large : 

He cooked potatoes fifty ways, 
Nor ever led a charge. 

"Palmam qui meruit " — the rest 
You knew as well as I ; 

And best of all to him that best 
Of sayings will apply. 

Let meaner men the poet's bays 
Or warrior's medal wear; 

Who cooks potatoes fifty ways 
Shall bear the palm — de terre. 



A BIT OF SCIENCE. 259 



A BIT OF SCIENCE. 

What ! photograph in colors ? 'T is a dream 
And he who dreams it is not overwise, 

If colors are vibration they but seem, 
And have no being. But if Tyndall lies, 
Why, come, then — photograph my lady's eyes. 

Nay, friend, you can't ; the splendor of their blue, 
As on my own beclouded orbs they rest, 

To naught but vibratory motion 's due, 
As heart, head, limbs and all I am attest. 

How could her eyes, at rest themselves, be making 

In me so uncontrollable a shaking? 



260 THE TABLES TURNED. 



THE TABLES TURNED. 

Over the man the street car ran, 

And the driver did never grin. 
" O killer of men, pray tell me when 

Your laughter means to begin. 

" Ten years to a day I 've observed you slay, 

And I never have missed before 
Your jubilant peals as your crunching wheels 

Were spattered with human gore. 

" Why is it, my boy, that you smother your joy, 

And why do you make no sign 
Of the merry mind that is dancing behind 

A solemner face than mine ? " 

The driver replied : " I would laugh till I cried 

If I had bisected you ; 
But I 'd like to explain, if I can for the pain, 

'T is myself that I 've cut in two." 



TO A DEJECTED POET. 261 



TO A DEJECTED POET. 

Thy gift, if that it be of God, 

Thou hast no warrant to appraise, 

Nor say : " Here part, O Muse, our ways, 

The road too stony to be trod." 

Not thine to call the labor hard 

And the reward inadequate. 

Who haggles o'er his hire with Fate 
Is better bargainer than bard. 

What ! count the effort labor lost 

When thy good angel holds the reed ? 
It were a sorry thing indeed 

To stay him till thy palm be crossed. 

" The laborer is worthy " — nay, 
The sacred ministry of song 
Is rapture ! — 't were a grievous wrong 

To fix a wages-rate for play. 



262 A FOOL. 



A FOOL. 

Says Anderson, Theosophist: 
" Among the many that exist 

In modern halls, 
Some lived in ancient Egypt's clime 
And in their childhood saw the prime 

Of Karnak's walls." 

Ah, Anderson, if that is true 
'T is my conviction, sir, that you 

Are one of those 
That once resided by the Nile, 
Peer to the sacred Crocodile, 

Heir to his woes. 

My judgment is, the holy Cat 

Mews through your larynx (and your hat) 

These many years. 
Through you the godlike Onion brings 
Its melancholy sense of things, 

And moves to tears. 



A FOOL. 263 

In you the Bull divine again 
Bellows and paws the dusty plain, 

To nature true. 
I challenge not his ancient hate 
But, lowering my knurly pate, 

Lock horns with you. 

And though Reincarnation prove 
A creed too stubborn to remove, 

And all your school 
Of Theosophs I cannot scare — 
All the more earnestly I swear 

That you 're a fool. 

You '11 say that this is mere abuse 
Without, in fraying you, a use. 

That 's plain to see 
With only half an eye. Come, now, 
Be fair, be fair, — consider how 

It eases me! 



264 THE HUMORIST. 



THE HUMORIST. 

" What is that, mother? " 

" The funny man, child. 
His hands are black, but his heart is mild." 

" May I touch him, mother? " 

" 'T were foolishly done : 
He is slightly touched already, my son." 

" O, why does he wear such a ghastly grin ? " 
" That 's the outward sign of a joke within." 

" Will he crack it, mother? " 

" Not so, my saint ; 
'T is meant for the Saturday Liver complaint." 

" Does he suffer, mother? " 

" God help him, yes ! — 
A thousand and fifty kinds of distress." 

" What makes him sweat so ? " 

" The demons that lurk 
In the fear of having to go to work." 

" Why does n't he end, then, his life with a rope ? " 
" Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope." 



MONTEFIORE. 265 



MONTEFIORE. 

I saw— 't was in a dream, the other night— 
A man whose hair with age was thin and white : 
One hundred years had bettered by his birth, 
And still his step was firm, his eye was bright. 

Before him and about him pressed a crowd. 
Each head in reverence was bared and bowed, 

And Jews and Gentiles in a hundred tongues 
Extolled his deeds and spoke his fame aloud. 

I joined the throng and, pushing forward, cried, 
" Montefiore ! " with the rest, and vied 

In efforts to caress the hand that ne'er 
To want and worth had charity denied. 

So closely round him swarmed our shouting clan 
He scarce could breathe, and taking from a pan 

A gleaming coin he tossed it o'er our heads, 
And in a moment was a lonely man ! 



266 A WARNING. 



A WARNING. 

Cried Age to Youth : " Abate your speed !- 
The distance hither 's brief indeed." 
But Youth pressed on without delay — 
The shout had reached but half the way. 



DISCRETION. 267 



DISCRETION. 

She: 

I 'm told that men have sometimes got 

Too confidential, and 
Have said to one another what 

They — well, you understand. 
I hope I don't offend you, sweet, 
But are you sure that you 're discreet ? 

He: 

'T is true, sometimes my friends in wine 

Their conquests do recall, 
But none can truly say that mine 

Are known to him at all. 
I never, never talk you o'er — 
In truth, I never get the floor. 



268 AN EXILE. 



AN EXILE. 

'T is the census enumerator 

A-singing all forlorn : 
" It 's ho ! for the tall potater, 

And ho! for the clustered corn. 
The whiffle-tree bends in the breeze and 

the fine 
Large eggs are a-ripening on the vine. 

" Some there must be to till the soil 
And the widow's weeds keep down. 

I was n't cut out for rural toil 

But they zvorit let me live in town ! 

They 're not so many by two or three, 
As they think, but ah ! they 're too 
many for me." 

Thus the census man, bowed down with 
care, 
Warbled his wood-note high. 
There was blood on his brow and blood 
in his hair, 
But he had no blood in his eve. 



THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT. 269 



THE DIVISION SUPERINTENDENT. 

Baffled he stands upon the track — 
The automatic switches clack. 

Where'er he turns his solemn eyes 
The interlocking signals rise. 

The trains, before his visage pale, 
Glide smoothly by, nor leave the rail. 

No splinter-spitted victim he 
Hears uttering the note high C. 

In sorrow deep he hangs his head, 
A-weary — would that he were dead. 

Now suddenly his spirits rise — 
A great thought kindles in his eyes. 

Hope, like a headlight's vivid glare, 
Splendors the path of his despair. 

His genius shines, the clouds roll back — 
" I '11 place obstructions on the track ! " 



270 PSYCHOGRAPHS. 



PSYCHOGRAPHS. 

Says Gerald Massey : " When I write, a band 
Of souls of the departed guides my hand." 
How strange that poems cumbering our shelves, 
Penned by immortal parts, have none themselves ! 



TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST. 271 



TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST. 

Newman, in you two parasites combine : 

As tapeworm and as graveworm too you shine. 

When on the virtues of the quick you 've dwelt, 

The pride of residence was all you felt 

(What vain vulgarian the wish ne'er knew 

To paint his lodging a flamboyant hue?) 

And when the praises of the dead you Ve sung, 

'T was appetite, not truth, inspired your tongue ; 

As ill-bred men when warming to their wine 

Boast of its merit though it be but brine. 

Nor gratitude incites your song, nor should — 

Even charity would shun you if she could. 

You share, 't is true, the rich man's daily dole, 

But what you get you take by way of toll. 

Vain to resist you — vermifuge alone 

Has power to push you from your robber throne. 

When to escape you he 's compelled to die 

Hey ! presto ! — in the twinkling of an eye 

You vanish as a tapeworm, reappear 

As graveworm and resume your curst career. 

As host no more, to satisfy your need 

He serves as dinner your unaltered greed. 

O thrifty sycophant of wealth and fame, 



272 TO A PROFESSIONAL EULOGIST. 

Son of servility and priest of shame, 

While naught your mad ambition can abate 

To lick the spittle of the rich and great ; 

While still like smoke your eulogies arise 

To soot your heroes and inflame our eyes ; 

While still with holy oil, like that which ran 

Down Aaron's beard, you smear each famous man, 

I cannot choose but think it very odd 

It ne'er occurs to you to fawn on God. 



FOR WOUNDS. 273 



FOR WOUNDS. 

O bear me, gods, to some enchanted isle 
Where woman's tears can antidote her smile. 



274 ELECTION DAY. 



ELECTION DAY. 

Despots effete upon tottering thrones 
Unsteadily poised upon dead men's bones, 
Walk up ! walk up ! the circus is free, 
And this wonderful spectacle you shall see: 
Millions of voters who mostly are fools — 
Demagogues' dupes and candidates' tools, 
Armies of uniformed mountebanks, 
And braying disciples of brainless cranks. 
Many a week they 've bellowed like beeves, 
Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves, 
Libeling freely the quick and the dead 
And painting the New Jerusalem red. 
Tyrants monarchical — emperors, kings, 
Princes and nobles and all such things — 
Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way : 
There 's nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay, 
And the freaks and curios here to be seen 
Are very uncommonly grand and serene. 

No more with vivacity they debate, 
Nor cheerfully crack the illogical pate ; 
No longer, the dull understanding to aid, 
The stomach accepts the instructive blade, 



ELECTION DAY. 275 

Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what 
From a revelation of rabbit-shot ; 
And vilification's flames — behold ! 
Burn with a bickering faint and cold. 

Magnificent spectacle ! — every tongue 
Suddenly civil that yesterday rung 
(Like a clapper beating a brazen bell) 
Each fair reputation's eternal knell; 
Hands no longer delivering blows, 
And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows. 

Walk up, gentlemen — nothing to pay — 
The Devil goes back to Hell to-day. 



276 THE MILITIAMAN. 



THE MILITIAMAN. 

" O warrior with the burnished arms — 

With bullion cord and tassel — 
Pray tell me of the lurid charms 
Of service and the fierce alarms : 

The storming of the castle, 
The charge across the smoking field, 

The rifles' busy rattle — 
What thoughts inspire the men who wield 
The blade — their gallant souls how steeled 

And fortified in battle." 

" Nay, man of peace, seek not to know 

War's baleful fascination — 
The soldier's hunger for the foe, 
His dread of safety, joy to go 

To court annihilation. 
Though calling bugles blow not now, 

Nor drums begin to beat yet, 
One fear unmans me, I '11 allow, 
And poisons all my pleasure : How 

If I should get my feet wet ! 



A LITERARY METHOD:' 277 



"A LITERARY METHOD." 

His poems Riley says that he indites 

Upon an empty stomach. Heavenly Powers, 

Feed him throat-full : for what the beggar writes 
Upon his empty stomach empties ours ! 



278 A WELCOME. 



A WELCOME. 

Because you call yourself Knights Templar, and 
There 's neither Knight nor Temple in the land, — 

Because you thus by vain pretense degrade 
To paltry purposes traditions grand, — 

Because to cheat the ignorant you say 
The thing that 's not, elated still to sway 

The crass credulity of gaping fools 
And women by fantastical display, — 

Because no sacred fires did ever warm 

Your hearts, high knightly service to perform — 

A woman's breast or coffer of a man 
The only citadel you dare to storm, — 

Because while railing still at lord and peer, 
At pomp and fuss-and-feathers while you jeer, 

Each member of your order tries to graft 
A peacock's tail upon his barren rear, — 

Because that all these things are thus and so, 
I bid you welcome to our city. Lo ! 

You 're free to come, and free to stay, and free 
As soon as it shall please you, sirs — to go. 



A SERENADE. 279 



A SERENADE. 

Zas ayaTru), cas ayairui , 

He sang beneath her lattice. 
" 'Sas agapo' ? " she murmured — "O, 
I wonder, now, what that is ! " 

Was she less fair that she did bear 
So light a load of knowledge? 

Are loving looks got out of books, 
Or kisses taught in college? 

Of woman's lore give me no more 

Than how to love, — in many 
A tongue men brawl : she speaks them all 

Who says "I love," in any. 



280 THE WISE AND GOOD. 



THE WISE AND GOOD. 

" O father, I saw at the church as I passed 

The populace gathered in numbers so vast 

That they could n't get in ; and their voices were low, 

And they looked as if suffering terrible woe." 

" 'T was the funeral, child, of a gentleman dead 
For whom the great heart of humanity bled." 

" What made it bleed, father, for every day 
Somebody passes forever away? 
Do the newspaper men print a column or more 
Of every person whose troubles are o'er ? " 

" O, no ; they could never do that — and indeed, 
Though printers might print it, no reader would read. 
To the sepulcher all, soon or late, must be borne, 
But 't is only the Wise and the Good that all mourn." 

" That 's right, father dear, but how can our eyes 
Distinguish in dead men the Good and the Wise ? " 

" That 's easy enough to the stupidest mind : 

They 're poor, and in dying leave nothing behind." 



THE WISE AND GOOD. 281 

" Seest thou in mine eye, father, anything green ? 
And takest thy son for a gaping marine? 
Go tell thy fine tale of the Wise and the Good 
Who are poor and lamented to babes in the wood." 

And that horrible youth as I hastened away 
Was building a wink that affronted the day. 



282 THE LOST COLONEL. 



THE LOST COLONEL. 

" 'T is a woeful yarn," said the sailor man bold 
Who had sailed the northern lakes — 

" No woefuler one has ever been told 
Exceptin' them called 'fakes.' " 

" Go on, thou son of the wind and fog, 

For I burn to know the worst ! " 
But his silent lip in a glass of grog 

Was dreamily immersed. 

Then he wiped it on his sleeve and said : 

"It 's never like that I drinks 
But what of the gallant gent that 's dead 

I truly mournful thinks. 

" He was a soldier chap — leastways 

As 'Colonel' he was knew ; 
An' he hailed from some'rs where they raise 

A grass that 's heavenly blue. 

" He sailed as a passenger aboard 

The schooner 'Henery Jo.' 
O wild the waves and galeses roared, 

Like taggers in a show ! 



THE LOST COLONEL. 283 

" But he sat at table that calm an' mild 

As if he never had let 
His sperit know that the waves was wild 

An' everlastin' wet! — 

"Jest set with a bottle afore his nose, 

As was labeled 'Total Eclipse' 
(The bottle was) an' he frequent rose 

A glass o' the same to his lips. 

"An' he says to me (for the steward slick 

Of the 'Henery Jo' was I) : 
' This sailor life 's the very old Nick — 

On the lakes it 's powerful dry ! ' 

" I says : 'Aye, aye, sir, it beats the Dutch. 

I hopes you '11 outlast the trip.' 
But if I 'd been him — an' I said as much — 

I 'd 'a' took a faster ship. 

" His laughture, loud an' long an' free, 

Rang out o'er the tempest's roar. 
' You 're an elegant reasoner,' says he, 

' But it 's powerful dry ashore ! ' " 

" O mariner man, why pause and don 

A look of so deep concern? 
Have another glass — go on, go on, 

For to know the worst I burn." 



284 THE LOST COLONEL. 

" One day he was leanin' over the rail, 
When his footing some way slipped, 

An' (this is the woefulest part o' my tale), 
He was accidental unshipped! 

" The empty boats was overboard hove, 
As he swum in the 'HeneryV wake ; 

But 'fore we had 'bouted ship he had drove 
From sight on the ragin' lake ! " 

"And so the poor gentleman was drowned — 
And now I 'm apprised of the worst." 

" What ! him ? 'T was an hour afore he was 
found — 
In the yawl — stone dead o' thirst ! " 



FOR TAT. 285 



FOR TAT. 

O, heavenly powers ! will wonders never cease ?- 

Hair upon dogs and feathers upon geese! 

The boys in mischief and the pigs in mire ! 

The drinking water wet ! the coal on fire ! 

In meadows, rivulets surpassing fair, 

Forever running, yet forever there! 

A tail appended to the gray baboon ! 

A person coming out of a saloon ! 

Last, and of all most marvelous to see, 

A female Yahoo flinging filth at me ! 

If 't would but stick I 'd bear upon my coat 

May Little's proof that she is fit to vote. 



286 A DILEMMA. 



A DILEMMA. 

Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men, 

For years I criticised their prose and verses : 
Pointed out all their blunders of the pen, 
Their shallowness of thought and feeling ; then 
Damned them up hill and down with hearty 
curses ! 

They said : " That's all that he can do — just sneer, 

And pull to pieces and be analytic. 
Why does n't he himself, eschewing fear, 
Publish a book or two, and so appear 

As one who has the right to be a critic ? 

" Let him who knows it all forbear to tell 

How little others know, but show his learning." 
The public added : " Who has written well 
May censure freely" — quoting Pope. I fell 
Into the trap and books began out-turning, — 

Books by the score — fine prose and poems fair, 

And not a book of them but was a terror, 
They were so great and perfect ; though I swear 
I tried right hard to work in, here and there, 
(My nature still forbade) a fault or error. 



A DILEMMA. 287 

'T is true, some wretches, whom I 'd scratched, no 
doubt, 

Professed to find — but that 's a trifling matter. 
Now, when the flood of noble books was out 
I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout, 

Till I was thought as mad as any hatter! 

(Why hatters all are mad, I cannot say. 

'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em, 
But truly, you '11 confess 't is very sad 
We wear the ugly things they make. Begad, 

They'd be less mischievous in an asylum!) 

"Consistency, thou art a" — well, you're paste! 

When next I felt my demon in possession, 
And made the field of authorship a waste, 
All said of me : "What execrable taste, 

To rail at others of his own profession ! " 

Good Lord! where do the critic's rights begin 
Who has of literature some clear-cut notion, 

And hears a voice from Heaven say : " Pitch in" ? 

He finds himself — alas, poor son of sin — 
Between the devil and the deep blue ocean! 



288 METEMPSYCHOSIS. 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

Once with Christ he entered Salem, 
Once in Moab bullied Balaam, 
Once by Apuleius staged 
He the pious much enraged. 
And, again, his head, as beaver, 
Topped the neck of Nick the Weaver. 
Omar saw him (minus tether — 
Free and wanton as the weather: 
Knowing naught of bit or spur) 
Stamping over Bahram-Gur. 
Now, as Altgeld, see him joy 
As Governor of Illinois ! 



THE SAINT AND THE MONK. 289 



THE SAINT AND THE MONK. 

Saint Peter at the gate of Heaven displayed 
The tools and terrors of his awful trade ; 
The key, the frown as pitiless as night, 
That slays intending trespassers at sight, 
And, at his side in easy reach, the curled 
Interrogation points all ready to be hurled. 

Straight up the shining cloudway (it so chanced 
No others were about) a soul advanced — 
A fat, orbicular and jolly soul 
With laughter-lines upon each rosy jowl — 
A monk so prepossessing that the saint 
Admired him, breathless, until weak and faint, 
Forgot his frown and all his questions too, 
Forgoing even the customary " Who ? " — 
Threw wide the gate and, with a friendly grin, 
Said, " 'T is a very humble home, but pray walk in." 

The soul smiled pleasantly. "Excuse me, please — 
Who 's in there ? " By insensible degrees 
The impudence dispelled the saint's esteem, 
As growing snores annihilate a dream. 
The frown began to blacken on his brow, 



2Q0 THE SAINT AND THE MONK. 

His hand to reach for " Whence? " and " Why ? " 

and "How?" 
" O, no offense, I hope," the soul explained; 
" I 'm rather — well, particular. I 've strained 
A point in coming here at all ; 't is said 
That Susan Anthony (I hear she 's dead 
At last) and all her followers are here. 
As company, they 'd be — confess it — rather queer." 

The saint replied, his rising anger past : 
" What can I do ? — the law is hard-and-fast, 
Albeit unwritten and on earth unknown — 
An oral order issued from the Throne. 
By but one sin has Woman e'er incurred 
God's wrath. To accuse Them Loud of that would 
be absurd." 

That friar sighed, but, calling up a smile, 
Said, slowly turning on his heel the while : 
" Farewell, my friend. Put up the chain and bar — 
I 'm going, so please you, where the pretty women 



are." 



1895. 



THE OPPOSING SEX. 291 



THE OPPOSING SEX. 

The Widows of Ashur 
Are loud in their wailing: 

"No longer the 'masher' 

Sees Widows of Ashur ! " 

So each is a lasher 

Of Man's smallest failing. 

The Widows of Ashur 
Are loud in their wailing. 

The Cave of Adullam, 
That home of reviling — 

No wooing can gull 'em 

In Cave of Adullam. 

No angel can lull 'em 
To cease their defiling 

The Cave of Adullam, 
That home of reviling. 

At men they are cursing — 
The Widows of Ashur ; 

Themselves, too, for nursing 

The men they are cursing. 

The praise they're rehearsing 
Of every slasher 

At men. They are cursing 
The Widows of Ashur. 



292 A WHIPPER-IN. 



A WHIPPER-IN. 

[Commissioner of Pensions Dudley has established a 
Sunday-school and declares he will remove any clerk in 
his department who does not regularly attend. — N. Y. 
World.] 

Dudley, great placeman, man of mark and note, 
Worthy of honor from a feeble pen 
Blunted in service of all true, good men, 

You serve the Lord — in courses, table d'hote: 

Au naturel, as well as a la Nick — 

" Eat and be thankful, though it make you sick." 

O, truly pious caterer, forbear 

To push the Saviour and Him crucified 
(Brochette you 'd call it) into their inside 

Who 're all unused to such ambrosial fare. 

The stomach of the soul makes quick revulsion 

Of aught that it has taken on compulsion. 

I search the Scriptures, but I do not find 
That e'er the Spirit beats with angry wings 
For entrance to the heart, but sits and sings 

To charm away the scruples of the mind. 

It says : " Receive me, please ; I '11 not compel" — 

Though if you don't you will go straight to Hell ! 



A WHIPPER-IN. 293 

Well, that 's compulsion, you will say. 'T is true : 

We cower timidly beneath the rod 

Lifted in menace by an angry God, 
But won't endure it from an ape like you. 
Detested simian with thumb prehensile, 
Switch me and I would brain you with my pencil ! 

Face you the Throne, nor dare to turn your back 
On its transplendency to flog some wight 
Who gropes and stumbles in the infernal night 

Your ugly shadow lays along his track. 

O, Thou who from the Temple scourged the sin, 

Behold what rascals try to scourge it in ! 



294 JUDGMENT. 



JUDGMENT. 

I drew aside the Future's veil 

And saw upon his bier 
The poet Whitman. Loud the wail 

And damp the falling tear. 

" He 's dead — he is no more ! " one cried, 
With sobs of sorrow crammed ; 

" No more ? He 's this much more," 
replied 
Another : " he is damned ! " 

1885. 



THE FALL OF MISS LARK1N. 295 



THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN. 

Hear me sing of Sally Larkin who, I 'd have you un- 
derstand, 
Played accordions as well as any lady in the land ; 
And I 've often heard it stated that her fingering was 

such 
That Professor Schweinenhauer was enchanted with 

her touch ; 
And that beasts were so affected when her apparatus 

rang 
That they dropped upon their haunches and deliriously 

sang. 
This I know from testimony, though a critic, I opine, 
Needs an ear that is dissimilar in some respects to 

mine. 
She could sing, too, like a jaybird, and they say all 

eyes were wet 
When Sally and the ranch-dog were performing a 

duet — 
Which I take it is a song that has to be so loudly sung 
As to overtax the strength of any single human lung. 
That, at least, would seem to follow from the tale I 

have to tell, 
Which (I've told you how she flourished) is how Sally 

Larkin fell. 



296 THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN. 

One day there came to visit Sally's dad as sleek and 

smart 
A chap as ever wandered there from any foreign part. 
Though his gentle birth and breeding he did not at all 

obtrude 
It was somehow whispered round he was a simon-pure 

Dude. 
Howsoe'er that may have been, it was conspicuous to 

see 
That he was a real Gent of an uncommon high degree. 
That Sally cast her tender and affectionate regards 
On this exquisite creation was, of course, upon the 

cards ; 
But he did n't seem to notice, and was variously blind 
To her many charms of person and the merits of her 

mind, 
And preferred, I grieve to say it, to play poker with 

her dad, 
And acted in a manner that in general was bad. 

One evening — 't was in summer — she was holding in 
her lap 

Her accordion, and near her stood that melancholy 
chap, 

Leaning up against a pillar with his lip in grog im- 
brued, 

Thinking, maybe, of that ancient land in which he was 
a Dude. 



THE FALL OF MISS LARKIN. 297 

Then Sally, who was melancholy too, began to hum 

And elongate the accordion with a preluding thumb. 

Then sighs of amorosity from Sally L. exhaled, 

And her music apparatus sympathetically wailed. 

" In the gloaming, O my darling ! " rose that wild im- 
passioned strain, 

And her eyes were fixed on his with an intensity of 
pain, 

Till the ranch-dog from his kennel at the postern gate 
came round, 

And going into session strove to magnify the sound. 

He lifted up his spirit till the gloaming rang and rang 

With the song that to his darling he impetuously sang ! 

Then that musing youth, recalling all his soul from 
other scenes, 

Where his fathers all were Dudes and his mothers 
all Dudines, 

From his lips removed the beaker and politely, o'er the 
grog, 

Said : " Miss Larkin, please be quiet : you will inter- 
rupt the dog." 



298 IN HIGH LIFE. 



IN HIGH LIFE. 

Sir Impycu Lackland, from over the sea, 
Has led to the altar Miss Bloatie Bondee. 
The wedding took place at the Church of St. Blare ; 
The fashion, the rank and the wealth were all there — 
No person was absent of all whom one meets. 
Lord Mammon himself bowed them into their seats, 
While good Sir John Satan attended the door 
And Sexton Beelzebub managed the floor, 
Respectfully keeping each dog to its rug, 
Preserving the peace between poodle and pug. 
Twelve bridesmaids escorted the bride up the aisle 
To blush in her blush and to smile in her smile ; 
Twelve groomsmen supported the eminent groom 
To scowl in his scowl and to gloom in his gloom. 
The rites were performed by the hand and the lip 
Of his Grace the Diocesan, Billingham Pip, 
Assisted by three able-bodied divines. 
He prayed and they grunted, he read, they made 

signs. 
Such fashion, such beauty, such dressing, such grace 
Were ne'er before seen in that heavenly place ! 
That night, full of gin, and all blazing inside, 
Sir Impycu blackened the eyes of his bride. 



A BUBBLE. 299 



A BUBBLE. 

Mrs. Mehitable Marcia Moore 

Was a dame of superior mind, 
With a gown which, modestly fitting before, 

Was greatly puffed up behind. 

The bustle she wore was ingeniously planned 

With an inspiration bright : 
It magnified seven diameters and 

Was remarkably nice and light. 

It was made of rubber and edged with lace 

And riveted all with brass, 
And the whole immense interior space 

Inflated with hydrogen gas. 

The ladies all said when she hove in view 
Like the round and rising moon : 

" She 's a stuck up thing ! " which was partly 
true, 
And men called her the Captive Balloon. 

To Manhattan Beach for a bath one day 
She went and she said : " O dear ! 



300 A BUBBLE. 

If I leave off this what will people say? 
I shall look so uncommonly queer ! " 

So a costume she had accordingly made 

To take it all nicely in, 
And when she appeared in that suit arrayed, 

She was greeted with many a grin. 

Proudly and happily looking around, 

She waded out into the wet, 
But the water was very, very profound, 

And her feet and her forehead met ! 

As her bubble drifted away from the shore, 

On the glassy billows borne, 
All cried : " Why, where is Mehitable Moore ? 

I saw her go in, I '11 be sworn ! " 

Then the bulb it swelled as the sun grew hot, 

Till it burst with a sullen roar, 
And the sea like oil closed over the spot — 

Farewell, O Mehitable Moore ! 



A RENDEZVOUS. 301 



A RENDEZVOUS. 

Nightly I put up this humble petition : 
" Forgive me, O Father of Glories, 

My sins of commission, my sins of omission, 
My sins of the Mission Dolores." 



302 FRANCINE. 



FRANCINE. 

Did I believe the angels soon would call 
You, my beloved, to the other shore, 
And I should never see you any more, 

I love you so I know that I should fall 

Into dejection utterly, and all 

Love's pretty pageantry, wherein we bore 
Twin banners bravely in the tumult's fore, 

Would seem as shadows idling on a wall. 

So daintily I love you that my love 

Endures no rumor of the winter's breath, 
And only blossoms for it thinks the sky 

Forever gracious, and the stars above 

Forever friendly. Even the fear of death 
Were frost wherein its roses all would die. 



AN EXAMPLE. 303 



AN EXAMPLE. 

They were two deaf mutes, and they loved and 
they 

Resolved to be groom and bride ; 
And they listened to nothing that any could say, 

Nor ever a word replied. 

From wedlock when warned by the married men, 

Maintain an invincible mind : 
Be deaf and dumb until wedded — and then 

Be deaf and dumb and blind. 



3 04 REVENGE. 



REVENGE. 

A spitcat sate on a garden gate 

And a snapdog fared beneath ; 
Careless and free was his mien, and he 

Held a fiddle-string in his teeth. 

She marked his march, she wrought an arch 
Of her back and blew up her tail ; 

And her eyes were green as ever were seen, 
And she uttered a woful wail. 

The spitcat's plaint was as follows : " It ain't 

That I am to music a foe ; 
For fiddle-strings bide in my own inside, 

And I twang them soft and low. 

" But that dog has trifled with art and rifled 

A kitten of mine, ah me ! 
That catgut slim was marauded from him : 

'T is the string that men call E." 



REVENGE. 305 

Then she sounded high, in the key of Y, 

A note that cracked the tombs ; 
And the missiles through the firmament flew 

From adjacent sleeping-rooms. 

As her gruesome yell from the gate-post fell 

She followed it down to earth ; 
And that snapdog wears a placard that bears 

The inscription : " Blind from birth." 



3 o6 THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT. 



THE GENESIS OF EMBARRASSMENT. 

When Adam first saw Eve he said : 
" O lovely creature, share my bed." 
Before consenting, she her gaze 
Fixed on the greensward to appraise, 
As well as vision could avouch, 
The value of the proffered couch. 
And seeing that the grass was green 
And neatly clipped with a machine — 
Observing that the flow'rs were rare 
Varieties, and some were fair, 
The posts of precious woods, besprent 
With fragrant balsams, diffluent, 
And all things suited to her worth, 
She raised her angel eyes from earth 
To his and, blushing to confess, 
Murmured : " I love you, Adam — yes." 
Since then her daughters, it is said, 
Look always down when asked to wed. 



IN CONTUMACIAM. 30? 



IN CONTUMACIAM. 

Och! Father McGlynn, 

Ye appear to be in 
Fer a bit of a bout wid the Pope ; 

An' there 's divil a doubt 

But he 's knockin' ye out 
While ye 're hangin' onto the rope. 

An' soon ye '11 lave home 

To thravel to Rome, 
For its bound to Canossa ye are. 

Persistin' to shtay 

When ye 're ordered away — 
Bedad ! that is goin' too far ! 



308 RE-EDIFIED. 



RE-EDIFIED. 

Lord of the tempest, pray refrain 
From leveling this church again. 
Now in its doom, as so you Ve willed it, 
We acquiesce. But you '11 rebuild it. 



A BULLETIN. 309 



A BULLETIN. 

" Lothario is very low," 

So all the doctors tell. 
Nay, nay, not so — he will be, though, 

If ever he get well. 



3io FROM THE MINUTES. 



FROM THE MINUTES. 

When, with the force of a ram that discharges its 

ponderous body 
Straight at the rear elevation of the luckless culler of 

simples, 
The foot of Herculean Kilgore — statesman of sur- 
name suggestive 
Or carnage unspeakable ! — lit like a missile prodigious 
Upon the Congressional door with a monstrous and 

mighty momentum, 
Causing that vain ineffective bar to political freedom 
To fly from its hinges, effacing the nasal excrescence 

of Dingley, 
That luckless one, decently veiling the ruin with ready 

bandanna, 
Lamented the loss of his eminence, sadly with sobs as 

follows : 
"Ah, why was I ever elected to the halls of legislation, 
So soon to be shown the door with pitiless emphasis? 

Truly, 
I 've leaned on a broken Reed, and the same has gone 

back on me meanly. 
Where now is my prominence, erstwhile in council 

conspicuous, patent? 



FROM THE MINUTES. 311 

Alas, I did never before understand what I now see 

clearly, 
To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human dis- 
tinctions ! " 
His fate so untoward and sad the Pine-tree statesman, 

bewailing, 
Stood in the corridor there while Democrats freed from 

confinement 
Came trooping forth from the chamber, dissembling 

all, as they passed him, 
Hilarious sentiments painful indeed to observe, and 

remarking : 
"O friend and colleague of the Speaker, what ails the 

unjoyous proboscis ? " 



3i2 WOMAN IN POLITICS. 



WOMAN IN POLITICS. 

What, madam, run for School Director? You? 
And want my vote and influence? Well, well, 

That beats me ! Gad ! where are we drifting to ? 
In all my life I never have heard tell 
Of such sublime presumption, and I smell 

A nigger in the fence ! Excuse me, madam ; 

We statesmen sometimes speak like the old Adam. 

But now you mention it — well, well, who knows? 

We might, that 's certain, give the sex a show. 
I have a cousin — teacher. I suppose 

If I stand in and you 're elected — no ? 

You '11 make no bargains ? That 's a pretty go ! 
But understand that school administration 
Belongs to Politics, not Education. 

We '11 pass the teacher deal ; but it were wise 
To understand each other at the start. 

You know my business — books and school supplies ; 
You 'd hardly, if elected, have the heart 
Some small advantage to deny me — part 

Of all my profits to be yours. What? Stealing? 

Please don't express yourself with so much feeling. 



WOMAN IN POLITICS. 313 

You pain me, truly. Now one question more. 
Suppose a fair young man should ask a place 

As teacher — would you (pardon) shut the door 
Of the Department in his handsome face 
Until — I know not how to put the case — 

Would you extort a kiss to pay your favor? 

Good Lord ! you laugh ? I thought the matter graver. 

Well, well, we can't do business, I suspect : 
A woman has no head for useful tricks. 

My profitable offers you reject 

And will not promise anything to fix 
The opposition. That 's not politics. 

Good morning. Stay — I 'm chaffing you, con- 
ceitedly. 

Madam, I mean to vote for you — repeatedly. 



3 i4 TO AN ASPIRANT. 



TO AN ASPIRANT. 

What! you a Senator — you, Mike de Young? 

Still reeking of the gutter whence you sprung? 

Sir, if all Senators were such as you, 

Their hands so crimson and so slender, too, — 

(Shaped to the pocket for commercial work, 

For literary, fitted to the dirk) — 

So black their hearts, so lily-white their livers, 

The toga's touch would give a man the shivers. 



A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE. 315 



A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE. 

Down in Southern Arizona where the Gila monster 

thrives, 
And the "Mescalero," gifted with a hundred thousand 

lives, 
Every hour renounces one of them by drinking liquid 

flame — 
The assassinating wassail that has given him his name ; 
Where the enterprising dealer in Caucasian hair is seen 
To hold his harvest festival upon his village-green, 
While the late lamented tenderfoot upon the plain is 

spread 
With a sanguinary circle on the summit of his head ; 
Where the cactuses (or cacti) lift their lances in the 

sun, 
And incautious jackass-rabbits come to sorrow as they 

run, 
Lived a colony of settlers — old Missouri was the State 
Where they formerly resided at a prehistoric date. 

Now, the spot that had been chosen for this colonizing 

scheme 
Was as waterless, believe me, as an Arizona stream. 

The soil was naught but ashes, by the breezes driven 
free, 



316 A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE. 

And an acre and a quarter were required to sprout a 

pea. 
So agriculture languished, for the land would not 

produce, 
And for lack of water, whisky was the beverage in 

use — 
Costly whisky, hauled in wagons many a weary, weary 

day, 
Mostly needed by the drivers to sustain them on their 

way. 
Wicked whisky ! King of Evils ! Why, O, why did 

God create 
Such a curse and thrust it on us in our inoffensive 

state ? 

Once a parson came among them, and a holy man was 

he; 
With his ailing stomach whisky would n't anywise 

agree ; 
So he knelt upon the mesa and he prayed with all his 

chin 
That the Lord would send them water or incline their 

hearts to gin. 

Scarcely was the prayer concluded ere an earthquake 

shook the land, 
And with copious effusion springs burst out on every 

hand! 
Merrily the waters gurgled, and the shock which gave 

them birth 



A BALLAD OF PIKEVILLE. 317 

Fitly was by some declared a temperance movement of 

the earth. 
Astounded by the miracle, the people met that night 
To celebrate it properly by some religious rite ; 
And 't is truthfully recorded that before the moon had 

sunk 
Every man and every woman was devotionally drunk. 
A half a standard gallon (says history) per head 
Of the best Kentucky prime was at that ceremony shed. 
O, the glory of that country! O, the happy, happy 

folk. 
By the might of prayer delivered from Nature's broken 

yoke! 
Lo! the plains to the horizon all are yellowing with 

rye, 
And the corn upon the hill-top lifts its banners to the 

sky! 
Gone the wagons, gone the drivers, and the road is 

grown to grass, 
Over which the incalescent Bourbon did aforetime 

pass. 
Pikeville (that's the name they've given, in their 

wild, romantic way, 
To that irrigation district) now distills, statistics say, 
Something like a hundred gallons, out of each re- 
current crop, 
To the head of population— and consumes it, every 

drop! 



318 A BUILDER. 



A BUILDER. 

I saw the devil — he was working free: 

A customs-house he builded by the sea. 

" Why do you this ? " The devil raised his head ; 

" Churches and courts I Ve built enough," he said. 



AN AUGURY. 319 



AN AUGURY. 

Upon my desk a single spray, 
With starry blossoms fraught. 

I write in many an idle way, 
Thinking one serious thought. 

" O flowers, a fine Greek name ye bear, 
And with a fine Greek grace." 

Be still, O heart, that turns to share 
The sunshine of a face. 

" Have ye no messages — no brief, 
Still sign : ' Despair ', or ' Hope ' ? " 

A sudden stir of stem and leaf — 
A breath of heliotrope ! 



320 LUSUS POLITICUS. 



LUSUS POLITICUS. 

Come in, old gentleman. How do you do ? 

Delighted, I 'm sure, that you 've called. 
I 'm a sociable sort of a chap and you 
Are a pleasant-appearing person, too, 

With a head agreeably bald. 
That 's right — sit down in the scuttle of coal 

And put up your feet in a chair. 

It is better to have them there : 
And I Ve always said that a hat of lead, 

Such as I see you wear, 
Was a better hat than a hat of glass. 
And your boots of brass 

Are a natural kind of boots, I swear. 

" May you blow your nose on a paper of pins ? 
Why, certainly, man, why not? 

I rather expected you 'd do it before, 

When I saw you poking it in at the door. 
It 's dev'lish hot — 
The weather, I mean. " You are twins" ? 
Why, that was evident at the start, 

From the way that you paint your head 
In stripes of purple and red, 



LUSUS POLITICUS. 321 

With dots of yellow. 

That proves you a fellow 
With a love of legitimate art. 
" You Ve bitten a snake and are feeling bad" ? 

That 's very sad, 
But Longfellow's words I beg to recall : 
Your lot is the common lot of all. 
" Horses are trees and the moon is a sneeze" ? 
That, I fancy, is just as you please. 
Some think that way and others hold 

The opposite view ; 

I never quite knew, 

For the matter o' that, 
When everything 's been said — 

May I offer this mat 
If you will stand on your head ? 
I suppose I look to be upside down 
From your present point of view. 
It 's a giddy old world, from king to clown, 

And a topsy-turvy, too. 
But, worthy and now uninverted old man, 
You 're built, at least, on a normal plan 

If ever a truth I spoke. 
Smoke ? 

Your air and conversation 

Are a liberal education, 

And your clothes, including the metal hat 

And the brazen boots — what 's that ? 



222 LUSUS POLITICUS. 

" You never could stomach a Democrat 

Since General Jackson ran? 
You 're another sort, but you predict 
That your party '11 get consummately licked ? " 

Good God ! what a queer old man ! 



BEREAVEMENT. 323 



BEREAVEMENT. 

A Countess (so they tell the tale) 

Who dwelt of old in Arno's vale, 

Where ladies, even of high degree, 

Know more of love than of A. B. C, 

Came once with a prodigious bribe 

Unto the learned village scribe, 

That most discreet and honest man 

Who wrote for all the lover clan, 

Nor e'er a secret had betrayed — 

Save when inadequately paid. 

" Write me," she sobbed — " I pray thee do — 

A book about the Prince di Giu — 

A book of poetry in praise 

Of all his works and all his ways ; 

The godlike grace of his address, 

His more than woman's tenderness, 

His courage stern and lack of guile, 

The loves that wantoned in his smile. 

So great he was, so rich and kind, 

I '11 not within a fortnight find 

His equal as a lover. O, 

My God! I shall be drowned in woe!" 



324 BEREAVEMENT. 

" What ! Prince di Giu has died ! " 

exclaimed 
The honest man for letters famed, 
The while he pocketed her gold ; 
" Of what'?— if I may be so bold." 
Fresh storms of tears the lady shed : 
" I stabbed him fifty times," she said. 



AN INSCRIPTION. 325 



AN INSCRIPTION 

FOR A STATUE OF NAPOLEON, AT WEST POINT. 

A famous conqueror, in battle brave, 
Who robbed the cradle to supply the grave. 
His reign laid quantities of human dust : 
He fell upon the just and the unjust. 



326 A PICKBRAIN. 



A PICKBRAIN. 

What ! imitate me, friend ? Suppose that you 

With agony and difficulty do 

What I do easily — what then ? You 've got 

A style I heartily wish / had not. 

If I from lack of sense and you from choice 

Grieve the judicious and the unwise rejoice, 

No equal censure our deserts will suit — 

We both are fools, but you 're an ape to boot ! 



CONVALESCENT. 327 



CONVALESCENT. 

" By good men's prayers see Grant restored ! 

Shouts Talmage, pious creature ! 
Yes, God, by supplication bored 

From every droning preacher, 
Exclaimed : " So be it, tiresome crew — 
But I 've a crow to pick with you." 



328 THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR. 



THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR. 

He looked upon the ships as they 

All idly lay at anchor, 
Their sides with gorgeous workmen 
gay— 

The riveter and planker — 

Republicans and Democrats, 

Statesmen and politicians. 
He saw the swarm of prudent rats 

Swimming for land positions. 

He marked each " belted cruiser " fine, 
Her poddy life-belts floating 

In tether where the hungry brine 
Impinged upon her coating. 

He noted with a proud regard, 
As any of his class would, 

The poplar mast and poplar yard 
Above the hull of bass-wood. 



THE NAVAL CONSTRUCTOR. 329 

He saw the Eastlake frigate tall, 

With quaintly carven gable, 
Hip-roof and dormer-window — all 

With ivy formidable. 

In short, he saw our country's hope 

In best of all conditions — 
Equipped, to the last spar and rope, 

By working politicians. 

He boarded then the noblest ship 

And from the harbor glided. 
" Adieu, adieu ! " fell from his lip. 

Verdict : " He suicided." 



330 DETECTED. 



DETECTED. 

In Congress once great Mowther shone, 

Debating weighty matters; 
Now into an asylum thrown, 

He vacuously chatters. 

If in that legislative hall 

His wisdom still he 'd vented, 

It never had been known at all 
That Mowther was demented. 



BIMETAL1SM. 331 



BIMETALISM. 

Ben Bulger was a silver man, 

Though not a mine had he : 
He thought it were a noble plan 

To make the coinage free. 

" There hain't for years been sech a time/ 

Said Ben to his bull pup, 
" For biz — the country 's broke and I 'm 

The hardest kind of up. 

" The paper says that that 's because 

The silver coins is sca'ce, 
And that the chaps which makes the laws 

Puts gold ones in their place. 

" They says them nations always be 

Most prosperatin' where 
The wolume of the currency 

Ain't so disgustin' rare." 

His dog, which had n't breakfasted, 

Dissented from his view, 
And wished that he could swell, instead, 

The volume of cold stew. 



332 BIMETALISM. 

" Nobody 'd put me up," said Ben, 
" With patriot galoots 

Which benefits their feller men 
By playin' warious roots; 

M But havin' all the tools about, 
I 'm goin' to commence 

A-turnin' silver dollars out 
Wuth eighty-seven cents. 

" The feller takin' 'em can't whine ; 

( No more, likewise, can I) : 
They 're better than the genooine, 

Which mostly satisfy. 

" It's only makin' coinage free, 
And mebby might augment 

The wolume of the currency 
A noomerous per cent." 

I don't quite see his error nor 

Malevolence prepense, 
But fifteen years they gave him for 

That technical offense. 



THE RICH TESTATOR. 333 



THE RICH TESTATOR. 

He lay on his bed and solemnly "signed," 
Gasping — perhaps 'twas a jest he meant: 

" This of a sound and disposing mind 
Is the last ill-will and contestament." 



334 TWO METHODS. 



TWO METHODS. 

To bucks and ewes by the Good Shepherd fed 
The Priest delivers masses for the dead, 
And even from estrays outside the fold 
Death for the masses he would not withhold. 
The Parson, loth alike to free or kill, 
Forsakes the souls already on the grill, 
And, God's prerogative of mercy shamming, 
Spares living sinners for a harder damning. 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE. 335 



FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE 

Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks 
Are played by sentimental cranks ! 
First this one mounts his hinder hoofs 
And brays the chimneys off the roofs ; 
Then that one, with exalted voice, 
Expounds the thesis of his choice, 
Our understandings to bombard, 
Till all the window panes are starred ! 
A third augments the vocal shock 
Till steeples to their bases rock, 
Confessing, as they humbly nod, 
They hear and mark the will of God. 
A fourth in oral thunder vents 
His awful penury of sense 
Till dogs with sympathetic howls, 
And lowing cows, and cackling fowls, 
Hens, geese, and all domestic birds, 
Attest the wisdom of his words. 
Cranks thus their intellects deflate 
Of theories about the State. 
This one avers 't is built on Truth, 
And that on Temperance. This youth 



336 FOUNDATIONS OF THE STATE. 

Declares that Science bears the pile; 
That graybeard, with a holy smile, 
Says Faith is the supporting stone; 
While women swear that Love alone 
Could so unflinchingly endure 
The heavy load. And some are sure 
The solemn vow of Christian Wedlock 
Is the indubitable bedrock. 

Physicians once about the bed 

Of one whose life was nearly sped 

Blew up a disputatious breeze 

About the cause of his disease : 

This, that and t' other thing they blamed. 

" Tut, tut ! " the dying man exclaimed, 

" What made me ill I do not care ; 

You Ve not an ounce of it, I '11 swear. 

And if you had the skill to make it 

I 'd see you hanged before I 'd take it ! " 



AN IMPOSTOR. 337 



AN IMPOSTER. 

Must you, Carnegie, evermore explain 

Your worth, and all the reasons give again 

Why black and red are similarly white, 

And you and God identically right? 

Still must our ears without redress submit 

To hear you play the solemn hypocrite 

Walking in spirit some high moral level, 

Raising at once his eye-balls and the devil? 

Great King of Cant ! if Nature had but made 

Your mouth without a tongue I ne 'er had prayed 

To have an earless head. Since she did not, 

Bear me, ye whirlwinds, to some favored spot — 

Some mountain pinnacle that sleeps in air 

So delicately, mercifully rare 

That when the fellow climbs that giddy hill, 

As, for my sins, I know at last he will, 

To utter twaddle in that void inane 

His soundless organ he will play in vain. 



338 UNEXPOUNDED. 



UNEXPOUNDED. 

On Evidence, on Deeds, on Bills, 
On Copyhold, on Loans, on Wills, 

Lawyers great books indite; 
The creaking of their busy quills 

I 've never heard on Right. 



FRANCE. 339 



FRANCE. 

Unhappy State ! with horrors still to strive : 

Thy Hugo dead, thy Boulanger alive ; 

A Prince who 'd govern where he dares not 

dwell, 
And who for power would his birthright sell — 
Who, anxious o'er his enemies to reign, 
Grabs at the scepter and conceals the chain ; 
While pugnant factions mutually strive 
By cutting throats to keep the land alive. 
Perverse in passion, as in pride perverse — 
To all a mistress, to thyself a curse ; 
Sweetheart of Europe ! every sun's embrace 
Matures the charm and poison of thy grace. 
Yet time to thee nor peace nor wisdom brings : 
In blood of citizens and blood of kings 
The stones of thy stability are set, 
And the fair fabric trembles at a threat. 



340 THE EASTERN QUESTION. 



THE EASTERN QUESTION. 

Looking across the line, the Grecian said : 
" This border I will stain a Turkey red." 
The Moslem smiled securely and replied: 
" No Greek has ever for his country dyed." 
While thus each patriot guarded his frontier, 
The Powers stole all the country in his rear. 



A GUEST. 341 



A GUEST. 

Death, are you well ? I trust you have no cough 
That 's painful or in any way annoying — 

No kidney trouble that may carry you off, 
Or heart disease to keep you from enjoying 

Your meals — and ours. 'T were very sad indeed 

To have to quit the busy life you lead. 

You 've been quite active lately for so old 
A person, and not very strong-appearing. 

I 'm apprehensive, somehow, that my bold, 
Bad brother gave you trouble in the spearing. 

And my two friends — I fear, sir, that you ran 

Quite hard for them, especially the man. 

I crave your pardon : 't was no fault of mine ; 

If you are overworked I 'm sorry, very. 
Come in, old man, and have a glass of wine. 

What shall it be — Marsala, Port or Sherry ? 
What! just a mug of blood? That 's funny grog 
To ask a friend for, eh ? Well, take it, hog ! 



342 A FALSE PROPHECY. 



A FALSE PROPHECY. 

Dom Pedro, Emperor of far Brazil 

(Whence coffee comes and the three-cornered 
nut), 

They say that you 're imperially ill, 

And threatened with paralysis. Tut-tut! 
Though Emperors are mortal, nothing but 

A nimble thunderbolt could catch and kill 

A man predestined to depart this life 

By the assassin's bullet, bomb or knife. 

Sir, once there was a President who freed 

Ten million slaves; and once there was a Czar 

Who freed five times as many serfs. Sins breed 
The means of punishment, and tyrants are 
Hurled headlong out of the triumphal car 

If faster than the law allows they speed. 

Lincoln and Alexander struck a rut ; 

You freed slaves too. Paralysis — tut-tut ! 

1885. 



TWO TYPES. 343 



TWO TYPES. 

Courageous fool ! — the peril's strength unknown. 
Courageous man ! — so conscious of your own. 



344 SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. 



SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. 

STEPHEN DORSEY. 

Fly, heedless stranger, from this spot accurst, 

Where rests in Satan an offender first 

In point of greatness, as in point of time, 

Of new-school rascals who proclaim their crime. 

Skilled with a frank loquacity to blab 

The dark arcana of each mighty grab, 

And famed for lying from his early youth, 

He sinned secure behind a veil of truth. 

Some lock their lips upon their deeds ; some write 

A damning record and conceal from sight ; 

Some, with a lust of speaking, die to quell it. 

His way to keep a secret was to tell it. 

STEPHEN J. FIELD. 

Here sleeps one of the greatest students 

Of jurisprudence. 
Nature endowed him with the gift 

Of the juristhrift. 
All points of law alike he threw 

The dice to settle. 
Those honest cubes were loaded true 

With railway metal. 



SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. 345 

GENERAL B. F. BUTLER. 

Thy flesh to earth, thy soul to God, 

We gave, O gallant brother; 
And o'er thy grave the awkward squad 

Fired into one another! 



Beneath this monument which rears its head, 
A giant note of admiration — dead, 
His life extinguished like a taper's flame, 
John Ericsson is lying in his fame. 
Behold how massive is the lofty shaft ; 
How fine the product of the sculptor's craft ; 
The gold how lavishly applied ; the great 
Man's statue how impressive and sedate! 
Think what the cost was ! It would ill become 
Our modesty to specify the sum; 
Suffice it that a fair per cent, we 're giving 
Of what we robbed him of when he was living. 



Of Corporal Tanner the head and the trunk 
Are here in unconsecrate ground duly sunk. 
His legs in the South claim the patriot's tear, 
But, stranger, you need n't be blubbering here. 



Jay Gould lies here. When he was newly dead 
He looked so natural that round his bed 



346 SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. 

The people stood, in silence all, to weep. 

They thought, poor souls ! that he did only sleep. 



Here Ingalls, sorrowing, has laid 
The tools of his infernal trade — 
His pen and tongue. So sharp and rude 
They grew — so slack in gratitude, 
His hand was wounded as he wrote, 
And when he spoke he cut his throat. 



Within this humble mausoleum 
Poor Guiteau's flesh you '11 find. 

His bones are kept in a museum, 
And Tillman has his mind. 



Stranger, uncover ; here you have in view 
The monument of Chauncey M. Depew. 
Eater and orator, the whole world round 
For feats of tongue and tooth alike renowned. 
Pauper in thought but prodigal in speech, 
Nothing he knew excepting how to teach. 
But in default of something to impart 
He multiplied his words with all his heart : 
When least he had to say, instructive most — 
A clam in wisdom and in wit a ghost. 



SOME ANTE-MORTEM EPITAPHS. 347 

Dining his way to eminence, he rowed 
With knife and fork up water-ways that flowed 
From lakes of favor — pulled with all his force 
And found each river sweeter than the source. 
Like rats, obscure beneath a kitchen floor, 
Gnawing and rising till obscure no more, 
He ate his way to eminence, and Fame 
Inscribes in gravy his immortal name. 
A trencher-knight, he, mounted on his belly, 
So spurred his charger that its sides were jelly. 
Grown desperate at last, it reared and threw him, 
And Indigestion, overtaking, slew him. 



Here the remains of Schuyler Colfax lie; 
Born, all the world knows when, and Heaven 

knows why. 
In 'yi he filled the public eye, 
In '72 he bade the world good-bye, 
In God's good time, with a protesting sigh, 
He came to life just long enough to die. 



Of Morgan here lies the unspirited clay, 
Who secrets of Masonry swore to betray. 
He joined the great Order and studied with zeal 
The awful arcana he meant to reveal. 
At last in chagrin by his own hand he fell — 
There was nothing to learn, there was nothing 
to tell. 



348 A HYMN OF THE MANY. 



A HYMN OF THE MANY. 

God's people sorely were oppressed, 
I heard their lamentations long; — 
I hear their singing, clear and strong, 

I see their banners in the West ! 

The captains shout the battle-cry, 
The legions muster in their might ; 
They turn their faces to the light, 

They lift their arms, they testify : 

" We sank beneath the Master's thong, 
Our chafing chains were ne'er undone ;- 
Now clash your lances in the sun 

And bless your banners with a song ! 

" God bides his time with patient eyes 
While tyrants build upon the land ; — 
He lifts his face, he lifts his hand, 

And from the stones his temples rise. 

" Now Freedom waves her joyous wing 
Beyond the foemen's shields of gold. 
March forward, singing, for, behold, 

The right shall rule while God is king!" 



ONE MORNING. 349 



ONE MORNING. 

Because that I am weak, my love, and ill, 
I cannot follow the impatient feet 
Of my desire, but sit and watch the beat 

Of the unpitying pendulum fulfill 

The hour appointed for the air to thrill 

And brighten at your coming. O my sweet, 
The tale of moments is at last complete — 

The tryst is broken on the gusty hill ! 

O lady, faithful-footed, loyal-eyed, 
The long leagues silence me ; yet doubt me not 

Think rather that the clock and sun have lied 
And all too early you have sought the spot. 

For lo ! despair has darkened all the light, 

And till I see your face it still is night. 



350 AN ERROR. 



AN ERROR. 

Good for he 's old? Ah, Youth, you do not dream 
How sweet the roses in the autumn seem ! 



AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT: 1 351 



AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT/' 

You 're grayer than one would have thought you 

The climate you have over there 
In the East has apparently brought you 

Disorders affecting the hair, 

Which — pardon me — seems a thought spare. 

You '11 not take offence at my giving 

Expression to notions like these. 
You might have been stronger if living 

Out here in our sanative breeze. 

It 's unhealthy here for disease. 

No, I 'm not as plump as a pullet.. 
But that 's the old wound, you see. 

Remember my paunching a bullet ? — 
And how that it did n't agree 
With — well, honest hardtack for me. 

Just pass me the wine — I 've a helly 
And horrible kind of drouth ! 

When a fellow has that in his belly 
Which did n't go in at his mouth 
He 's hotter than all Down South ! 



352 AT THE "NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT !> 

Great Scott ! what a nasty day that was — 
When every galoot in our crack 

Division who did n't lie flat was 
Dissuaded from further attack 
By the bullet's felicitous whack. 

'T was there that our major slept under 
Some cannon of ours on the crest, 

Till they woke him by stilling their thunder, 
And he cursed them for breaking his rest, 
And died in the midst of his jest. 

That night — it was late in November — 
The dead seemed uncommonly chill 

To the touch ; and one chap I remember 
Who took it exceedingly ill 
When I dragged myself over his bill. 

Well, comrades, I 'm off now — good morning. 

Your talk is as pleasant as pie, 
But, pardon me, one word of warning : 

Speak little of self, say I. 

That's my way. God bless you. Good-bye. 



THE KING OF BORES. 353 



THE KING OF BORES. 

Abundant bores afflict this world, and some 
Are bores of magnitude that come and — no, 
They 're always coming, but they never go — 

Like funeral pageants, as they drone and hum 

Their lurid nonsense like a muffled drum, 
Or bagpipe's dread unnecessary flow. 
But one superb tormentor I can show — 

Prince Fiddlefaddle, Due de Feefawfum. 

He the johndonkey is who, when I pen 
Amorous verses in an idle mood 

To nobody, or of her, reads them through 

And, smirking, says he knows the lady ; then 

Calls me sly dog. I wish he understood 

This tender sonnet's application too. 



354 HISTORY. 



HISTORY. 

What wrecked the Roman power ? One says vice, 

Another indolence, another dice. 

Emascle says polygamy. " Not so," 

Says Impycu — " 't was luxury and show." 

The parson, lifting up a brow of brass, 

Swears superstition gave the coup de grace, 

Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms 

'T was lack of coins (croaks Medico: " 'T was 

worms") 
And John P. Jones the swift suggestion collars, 
Averring the no coins were silver dollars. 
Thus, through the ages, each presuming quack 
Turns the poor corpse upon its rotten back, 
Holds a new "autopsy" and finds that death 
Resulted partly from the want of breath, 
But chiefly from some visitation sad 
That points his argument or serves his fad. 
They 're all in error — never human mind 
The cause of the disaster has divined. 
What slew the Roman power? Well, provided 
You '11 keep the secret, I will tell you. I did. 



THE HERMIT. 355 



THE HERMIT. 

To a hunter from the city, 

Overtaken by the night, 
Spake, in tones of tender pity 

For himself, an aged wight: 

" I have found the world a fountain 

Of deceit and Life a sham. 
I have taken to the mountain 

And a Holy Hermit am. 

" Sternly bent on Contemplation, 
Far apart from human kind — 

In the hill my habitation, 
In the Infinite my mind. 

" Ten long years I 've lived a dumb thing, 
Growing bald and bent with dole, 

Vainly seeking for a Something 
To engage my gloomy soul. 

" Gentle Pilgrim, while my roots you 
Eat, and quaff my simple drink, 

Please suggest whatever suits you 
As a Theme for me to Think." 



356 THE HERMIT. 

Then the hunter answered gravely : 
" From distraction free, and strife, 

You could ponder very bravely 
On the Vanity of Life." 

" O, thou wise and learned Teacher, 
You have solved the Problem well- 

You have saved a grateful creature 
From the agonies of hell. 

" Take another root, another 
Cup of water: eat and drink. 

Now I have a Subject, brother, 

Tell me What, and How, to think." 



TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON. 357 



TO A CRITIC OF TENNYSON. 

Affronting fool, subdue your transient light; 
When Wisdom's dull dares Folly to be bright ? 
If Genius stumble in the path to fame, 
'T is decency in dunces to go lame. 



358 THE YEARLY LIE. 



THE YEARLY LIE. 

A merry Christmas? Prudent, as I live! — 
You wish me something that you need not give. 

Merry or sad, what does it signify? 
To you 't is equal if I laugh, or die. 

Your hollow greeting, like a parrot's jest, 
Finds all its meaning in the ear addressed. 

Why " merry" Christmas ? Faith, I 'd rather 

frown 
Than grin and caper like a tickled clown. 

When fools are merry the judicious weep; 
The wise are happy only when asleep. 

A present? Pray you give it to disarm 
A man more powerful to do you harm. 

'T was not your motive ? Well, I cannot let 
You pay for favors that you '11 never get. 

Perish the savage custom of the gift, 
Founded in terror and maintained in thrift ! 



THE YEARLY LIE. 359 

What men of honor need to aid their weal 
They purchase, or, occasion serving, steal. 

Go celebrate the day with turkeys, pies, 
Sermons and psalms, and, for the children, lies. 

Let Santa Claus descend again the flue ; 
If Baby doubt it, swear that it is true. 

" A lie well stuck to is as good as truth," 
And God's too old to legislate for youth. 

Hail Christmas ! On my knees and fowl I fall ; 

For greater grace and better gravy call. 

Vive V Humbug! — that's to say, God bless us all! 



36o CO-OPERATION. 



COOPERATION. 

No more the swindler singly seeks his prey 
To hunt in couples is the modern way — 
A rascal, from the public to purloin, 
An honest man to hide away the coin. 



AN APOLOGUE. 361 



AN APOLOGUE. 

A traveler observed one day 
A loaded fruit-tree by the way. 
And reining in his horse exclaimed: 
" The man is greatly to be blamed 
Who, careless of good morals, leaves 
Temptation in the way of thieves. 
Now lest some villain pass this way 
And by this fruit be led astray 
To bag it, I will kindly pack 
It snugly in my saddle-sack." 
He did so; then that Salt o' the Earth 
Rode on, rejoicing in his worth. 



362 DIAGNOSIS. 



DIAGNOSIS. 

Cried Allen Forman : " Doctor, pray 

Compose my spirits' strife: 
O what may be my chances, say, 

Of living all my life? 

" For lately I have dreamed of high 

And hempen dissolution ! 
O doctor, doctor, how can I 

Amend my constitution ? " 

The learned leech replied : " You 're young 

And beautiful and strong — 
Permit me to inspect your tongue: 

H'm, ah, ahem ! — 't is long." 



FALLEN. 363 



FALLEN. 

O, hadst thou died when thou wert great, 
When at thy feet a nation knelt 
To sob the gratitude it felt 
And thank the Saviour of the State, 
Gods might have envied thee thy fate! 

Then was the laurel round thy brow, 
And friend and foe spoke praise of thee, 
While all our hearts sang victory. 
Alas ! thou art too base to bow 
To hide the shame that brands it now. 



364 DIES IR2E. 



DIES IRyE. 

A recent republication of the late Gen. John A. Dix's 
disappointing translation of this famous medieval hymn, 
together with some researches into its history which I 
happened to be making at the time, induces me to under- 
take a translation myself. It may seem presumption in 
me to attempt that which so many eminent scholars of 
so many generations have attempted before me; but the 
conspicuous failure of others encourages me to hope 
that success, being still unachieved, is still achievable. 
The fault of previous translations, from Lord Macaulay's 
to that of Gen. Dix, has been, I venture to think, a too 
strict literalness, whereby the delicate irony and subtle 
humor of the immortal poem — though doubtless these 
admirable qualities were well appreciated by the trans- 
lators — have been utterly sacrificed in the result. In none 
of the English versions that I have examined is more 
than a trace of the mocking spirit of insincerity pervading 
the whole prayer, — the cool effrontery of the suppliant in 
enumerating his demerits, his serenely illogical demands of 
salvation in spite, or rather because, of them, his meek sub- 
mission to the punishment of others, and the many simi- 

DlES IlLE. 

Dies irae ! dies ilia ! 
Solvet sseclum in favilla 
Teste David cum Sibylla. 



Quantus tremor est futurus, 
Quando Judex est venturus. 
Cuncta stricte discussurus. 



THE DAY OF WRATH. 365 

larly pleasing characteristics of this amusing work, being 
most imperfectly conveyed. By permitting myself a reason- 
able freedom of rendering — in many cases boldly supplying 
that "missing link" between the sublime and the ridiculous 
which the author, writing for the acute monkish appre- 
hension of the 13th century, did not deem it neces- 
sary to insert— I have hoped at least partially to liberate 
the lurking devil of humor from his fetters, letting him 
caper, not, certainly, as he does in the Latin, but as he 
probably would have done had his creator written in 
English. In preserving the metre and double rhymes of 
the original, I have acted from the same reverent regard 
for the music with which, in the liturgy of the Church, 
the verses have become inseparably wedded that inspired 
Gen. Dix; seeking rather to surmount the obstacles to 
success by honest effort, than to avoid them by the adop- 
tion of an easier versification which would have deprived 
my version of all utility in religious service. 

I must bespeak the reader's charitable consideration in 
respect of the first stanza, the insuperable difficulties of 
which seem to have been purposely contrived in order 
to warn off trespassers at the very boundary of the 
alluring domain. I have got over the inhibition — somehow 
— but David and the Sibyl must try to forgive me if they 
find themselves represented merely by the names of 
those conspicuous personal qualities to which they prob- 
ably owed, respectively, their powers of prophecy, as 
Samson's strength lay in his hair. 

The Day of Wrath. 

Day of Satan's painful duty! 
Earth shall vanish, hot and sooty; 
So says Virtue, so says Beauty. 

Ah ! what terror shall be shaping 
When the Judge the truth 's undraping ! 
Cats from every bag escaping! 



366 DIES 1R2E. 

Tuba mirum spargens sonum 
Per sepulchra regionem, 
Coget omnes ante thronum. 

Mors stupebit, et Natura, 
Quum resurget creatura 
Judicanti responsura. 

Liber scriptus proferetur, 
In quo totum continetur, 
Unde mundus judicetur. 

Judex ergo quum sedebit, 
Quicquid latet apparebit, 
Nil inultum remanebit. 

Ouid sum miser tunc dicturus, 
Quern patronem rogaturus, 
Quum vix Justus sit securus ? 

Rex tremendse majestatis, 
Qui salvandos salvas gratis ; 
Salva me, Fons pietatis. 

Recordare, Jesu pie, 
Quod sum causa tuse vise; 
Ne me perdas ilia die. 



THE DAY OF WRATH. 367 

Now the trumpet's invocation 
Calls the dead to condemnation; 
All receive an invitation. 

Death and Nature now are quaking, 

And the late lamented, waking, 

In their breezy shrouds are shaking. 

Lo! the Ledger's leaves are stirring, 
And the Clerk, to them referring, 
Makes it awkward for the erring. 

When the Judge appears in session, 
We shall all attend confession, 
Loudly preaching non-suppression. 

How shall I then make romances 

Mitigating circumstances ? 

Even the just must take their chances. 

King whose majesty amazes, 

Save thou him who sings thy praises; 

Fountain, quench my private blazes. 

Pray remember, sacred Savior, 
Mine the playful hand that gave your 
Death-blow. Pardon such behavior. 



368 DIES 1R2E. 

Quserens me sedisti lassus 
Redemisti crucem passus, 
Tantus labor non sit cassus. 

Juste Judex ultionis, 
Donum fac remissionis 
Ante diem rationis. 

Ingemisco tanquam reus, 
Culpa rubet vultus meus ; 
Supplicanti parce, Deus. 

Qui Mariam absolvisti, 
Et latronem exaudisti, 
Mihi quoque spem dedisti. 

Preces mese non sunt dignse, 
Sed tu bonus fac benigne 
Ne perenni cremer igne. 

Inter oves locum prsesta. 
Et ab hsedis me sequestra, 
Statuens in parte dextra. 

Confutatis maledictis, 
Flammis acribus addictis, 
Voca me cum benedictis. 



THE DAY OF WRATH. 369 

Seeking me fatigue assailed thee, 
Calvary's outlook naught availed thee ; 
Now 't were cruel if I failed thee. 

Righteous judge and learned brother, 
Pray thy prejudices smother 
Ere we meet to try each other. 

Sighs of guilt my conscience gushes, 
And my face vermilion flushes ; 
Spare me for my pretty blushes. 

Thief and harlot, when repenting, 
Thou forgav'st — be complimenting 
Me with sign of like relenting. 

If too bold is my petition 

I '11 receive with due submission 

My dismissal — from perdition. 

When thy sheep thou hast selected 
From the goats, may I, respected, 
Stand amongst them undetected. 

When offenders are indicted, 
And with trial-flames ignited, 
Elsewhere I '11 attend if cited. 



370 DIES IR2E. 

Oro supplex et acclinis, 
Cor contritum quasi cinis 
Gere curam mei finis. 



Lacrymosa dies ilia 
Qua resurget et favilla, 
Judicandus homo reus. 
Huic ergo parce, Deus ! 



THE DAY OF WRATH. 371 

Ashen-hearted, prone, and prayerful, 
When of death I see the air full, 
Lest I perish, too, be careful. 

On that day of lamentation, 
When, to enjoy the conflagration, 
Men come forth, O, be not cruel, 
Spare me, Lord — make them thy fuel. 



372 ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION. 



ONE MOOD'S EXPRESSION. 

See, Lord, fanatics all arrayed 

For revolution! 
To foil their villainous crusade 
Unsheathe again the sacred blade 

Of persecution. 

What though through long disuse 't is grown 

A trifle rusty ? 
'Gainst modern heresy, whose bone 
Is rotten, and the flesh fly-blown, 

It still is trusty. 

Of sterner stuff thine ancient foes, 

Unapprehensive, 
Sprang forth to meet thy biting blows ; 
Our zealots chiefly to the nose 

Assume the offensive. 

Then wield the blade their necks to hack, 

Nor ever spare one. 
Thy crowns of martyrdom unpack, 
But see that every martyr lack 

The head to wear one. 



SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS. 373 



SOMETHING IN THE PAPERS. 

" What's in the paper? " Oh, it 's dev'lish dull: 

There 's nothing happening at all — a lull 

After the war-storm. Mr. Someone's wife 

Killed by her lover with, I think, a knife. 

A fire on Blank Street and some babies — one, 

Two, three or four, I don't remember, done 

To quite a delicate and lovely brown. 

A husband shot by woman of the town — 

The same old story. Shipwreck somewhere south, 

The crew all saved — or lost. Uncommon drouth 

Makes hundreds homeless up the River Mud — 

Though, come to think, I guess it was a flood. 

'T is feared some bank will burst — or else it won't ; 

They always burst, I fancy — or they don't; 

Who cares a cent? — the banker pays his coin 

And takes his chances : bullet in the groin — 

But that 's another item — suicide — 

Fool lost his money (serve him right) and died. 

Heigh-ho ! there 's noth — Jerusalem ! what's this ? 

Tom Jones has failed! My God, what an abyss 

Of ruin! — owes me seven hundred, clear! 

Was ever such a damned disastrous vear! 



374 IN THE BINNACLE. 



IN THE BINNACLE. 

[The Church possesses the unerring compass whose 
needle points directly and persistently to the star of the 
eternal law of God. — Religious Weekly.] 

The Church's compass, if you please, 
Has two or three (or more) degrees 

Of variation; 
And many a soul has gone to grief 
On this or that or t' other reef 
Through faith unreckoning or brief 

Miscalculation. 
Misguidance is of perils chief 

To navigation. 

The obsequious thing makes, too, you '11 mark, 
Obeisance through a little arc 

Of declination; 
For Satan, fearing witches, drew 
From Death's pale horse, one day, a shoe, 
And nailed it to his door to undo 

Their machination. 
Since then the needle dips to woo 

His habitation. 



HUMILITY. 375 



HUMILITY. 

Great poets fire the world with fagots big 

That make a crackling racket, 
But I 'm content with but a whispering twig 

To warm some single jacket. 



376 ONE PRESIDENT. 



ONE PRESIDENT. 

" What are those, father ? " " Statesmen, my child — 
Lacrymose, unparliamentary, wild." 

"What are they that way for, father?" "Last fall, 
' Our candidate's better/ they said, ' than all ! ' " 

" What did they say he was, father ? " "A man 
Built on a straight incorruptible plan — 
Believing that none for an office would do 
Unless he were honest and capable too." 

" Poor gentlemen — so disappointed ! " " Yes, lad, 
That is the feeling that 's driving them mad ; 
They 're weeping and wailing and gnashing because 
They find that he 's all that they said that he was." 



THE BRIDE. 377 



THE BRIDE. 

" You know, my friends, with what a brave carouse 
I made a second marriage in my house — 

Divorced old barren Reason from my bed 
And took the Daughter of the Vine to spouse." 

So sang the Lord of Poets. In a gleam 
Of light that made her like an angel seem, 

The Daughter of the Vine said : " I myself 
Am Reason, and the Other was a Dream." 



378 STRAINED RELATIONS. 



STRAINED RELATIONS. 

Says England to Germany : " Africa 's ours." 
Says Germany : " Ours, I opine." 

Says Africa : " Tell me, delectable Pow'rs, 
What is it that ought to be mine ? " 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 379 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 

A man born blind received his sight 

By a painful operation ; 
And these are things he saw in the light 

Of an infant observation. 

He saw a merchant, good and wise, 
And greatly, too, respected, 

Who looked, to those imperfect eyes, 
Like a swindler undetected. 

He saw a patriot address 

A noisy public meeting. 
And said : " Why, that 's a calf, I guess, 

That for the teat is bleating." 

A doctor stood beside a bed 
And shook his summit sadly. 

" O see that foul assassin ! " said 
The man who saw so badly. 

He saw a lawyer pleading for 

A thief whom they 'd been jailing, 

And said : " That 's an accomplice, or 
My sight again is failing." 



380 THE MAN BORN BLIND. 

Upon the Bench a Justice sat, 
With nothing to restrain him; 

" 'T is strange," said the observer, " that 
They ventured to unchain him." 

With theologic works supplied, 

He saw a solemn preacher; 
" A burglar with his kit," he cried, 

" To rob a fellow creature." 

A bluff old farmer next he saw 

Sell produce in a village, 
And said : " What, what ! is there no law 

To punish men for pillage ? " 

A dame, tall, fair and stately, passed, 

Who many charms united; 
He thanked his stars his lot was cast 

Where sepulchers were whited. 

He saw a soldier stiff and stern, 
" Full of strange oaths " and toddy ; 

But was unable to discern 
A wound upon his body. 

Ten square leagues of rolling ground 
To one great man belonging, 

Looked like one little grassy mound 
With worms beneath it thronging. 



THE MAN BORN BLIND. 381 

A palace's well-carven stones, 

Where Dives dwelt contented, 
Seemed built throughout of human bones 

With human blood cemented. 

He watched the yellow shining thread 

A silk-worm was a-spinning; 
" That creature 's coining gold," he said, 

" To pay some girl for sinning." 

His eyes were so untrained and dim 

All politics, religions, 
Arts, sciences, appeared to him 

But modes of plucking pigeons. 

And so he drew his final breath, 
And thought he saw with sorrow 

Some persons weeping for his death 
Who 'd be all smiles to-morrow. 



382 A NIGHTMARE. 



A NIGHTMARE. 

I dreamed that I was dead. The years went by: 
The world forgot that such a man as I 

Had ever lived and written : other names 
Were hailed with homage, in their turn to die. 

Out of my grave a giant beech upgrew. 

Its roots transpierced my body, through and through, 

My substance fed its growth. From many lands 
Men came in troops that giant tree to view. 

'T was sacred to my memory and fame — 
My monument. But Allen Forman came, 

Filled with the fervor of a new untruth, 
And carved upon the trunk his odious name ! 



A WET SEASON. 383 



A WET SEASON. 
Horas non numero- nisi serenas. 

The rain is fierce, it flogs the earth, 

And man 's in danger. 
O that my mother at my birth 

Had borne a stranger ! 
The flooded ground is all around, 

The depth uncommon, 
How blest I 'd be if only she 

Had borne a salmon. 

If still denied the solar glow 

'T were bliss ecstatic 
To be amphibious — but O, 

To be aquatic ! 
We 're worms, men say, o' the dust, and they 

That faith are firm of. 
O, then, be just: show me some dust 

To be a worm of. 

The pines are chanting overhead 
A psalm uncheering. 



384 A WET SEASON. 

It 's O, to have been for ages dead 

And hard of hearing! 
Restore, ye Pow'rs, the last bright hours 

The dial reckoned; 
'T was in the time of Egypt's prime — 

Rameses II. 



THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS. 385 



THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS. 

Tut-tut! give back the flags — how can you care, 

You veterans and heroes? 
Why should you at a kind intention swear 

Like twenty Neroes? 

Suppose the act was not so overwise — 

Suppose it was illegal — 
Is 't well on such a question to arise 

And pinch the Eagle ? 

Nay, let 's economize his breath to scold 

And terrify the alien 
Who tackles him, as Hercules of old 

The bird Stymphalian. 

Among the rebels when we made a breach 

Was it to get their banners? 
That was but incidental — 't was to teach 

Them better manners. 

They know the lesson well enough to-day; 

Now, let us try to show them 
That we 're not only stronger far than they, 

(How we did mow them!) 



386 THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS. 

But more magnanimous. You see, my lads, 

'T was an uncommon riot ; 
The warlike tribes of Europe fight for " fads," 

We fought for quiet. 

If we were victors, then we all must live 

With the same flag above us ; 
'T was all in vain unless we now forgive 

And make them love us. 

Let kings keep trophies to display above 

Their doors like any savage; 
The freeman's trophy is the foeman's love, 

Despite war's ravage. 

" Make treason odious ? " My friends, you '11 find 

You can't, in right and reason, 
While "Washington" and "treason" are combined- 

"Hugo" and "treason." 

All human governments must take the chance 

And hazard of sedition. 
O, wretch! to pledge your manhood in advance 

To blind submission. 

It may be wrong, it may be right, to rise 

In warlike insurrection : 
The loyalty that fools so dearly prize 

May mean subjection. 



THE CONFEDERATE FLAGS. 387 

Be loyal to your country, yes — but how 

If tyrants hold dominion? 
The South believed they did; can't you allow 

For that opinion? 

He who will never rise though rulers plot, 

His liberties despising — 
How is he manlier than the sans culottes 

Who's always rising? 

Give back the foolish flags whose bearers fell, 

Too valiant to forsake them. 
Is it presumptuous, this counsel? Well, 

I helped to take them. 



388 HJEC FAB U LA DOCET. 



UMC FABULA DOCET. 

A rat who 'd gorged a box of bane 

And suffered an internal pain, 

Came from his hole to die (the label 

Required it if the rat were able) 

And found outside his habitat 

A limpid stream. Of bane and rat 

'T was all unconscious ; in the sun 

It ran and prattled just for fun. 

Keen to allay his inward throes, 

The beast immersed his filthy nose 

And drank — then, bloated by the stream, 

And filled with superheated steam, 

Exploded with a rascal smell, 

Remarking, as his fragments fell 

Astonished in the brook : " I 'm thinking 

This water 's damned unwholesome drinking ! " 



EXONERATION. 389 



EXONERATION. 

When men at candidacy don't connive, 

From that suspicion if their friends would free 'em, 
The teeth and nails with which they did not strive 

Should be exhibited in a museum. 



39© AZRAEL. 



AZRAEL. 

The moon in the field of the keel-plowed main 
Was watching the growing tide: 

A luminous peasant was driving his wain, 
And he offered my soul a ride. 

But I nourished a sorrow uncommonly tall, 
And I fixed him fast with mine eye. 

" O, peasant," I sang with a dying fall, 
" Go leave me to sing and die." 

The water was weltering round my feet, 
As prone on the beach they lay. 

I chanted my death-song loud and sweet; 
" Kioodle, ioodle, iay ! " 

Then I heard the swish of erecting ears 
Which caught that enchanted strain. 

The ocean was swollen with storms of tears 
That fell from the shining swain. 

" O, poet," leapt he to the soaken sand, 
" That ravishing song would make 

The devil a saint." He held out his hand 
And solemnly added : " Shake." 



AZRAEL. 391 

We shook. " I crave a victim, you see," 
He said — " you came hither to die." 

The Angel of Death, 'twas he! 'twas he! 
And the victim he crove was I ! 

'Twas I, Fred Emerson Brooks, the bard; 

And he knocked me on the head. 
O, Lord ! I thought it exceedingly hard, 

For I did n't want to be dead. 

" You '11 sing no worser for that," said he, 

And he drove with my soul away. 
O, death-song singers, be warned by me, 

Kioodle, ioodle, iav! 



392 AGAIN. 



AGAIN. 

Well, I 've met her again — at the Mission. 

She 'd told me to see her no more ; 
It was not a command — a petition; 

I 'd granted it once before. 

Yes, granted it, hoping she 'd write me. 
Repenting her virtuous freak — 

Subdued myself daily and nightly 
For the better part of a week. 

And then ('t was my duty to spare her 

The shame of recalling me) I 
Just sought her again to prepare her 

For an everlasting good-bye. 

O, that evening of bliss — shall I ever 
Forget it ? — with Shakespeare and Poe ! 

She said, when 't was ended : " You 're never 
To see me again. And now go." 

As we parted with kisses 't was human 

And natural for me to smile 
As I thought, " She 's in love, and a woman : 

She '11 send for me after a while." 



AGAIN. 393 

But she didn't; and so — well, the Mission 

Is fine, picturesque and gray; 
It 's an excellent place for contrition — 

And sometimes she passes that way. 

That 's how it occurred that I met her, 

And that 's all there is to tell — 
Except that I ' d like to forget her 

Calm way of remarking : " I 'm well." 

It was hardly worth while, all this keying 

My soul to such tensions and stirs 
To learn that her food was agreeing 

With that little stomach of hers. 



394 HOMO PODUNKENSIS. 



HOMO PODUNKENSIS. 

As the poor ass that from his paddock strays 

Might sound abroad his field-companions' praise, 

Recounting volubly their well-bred leer, 

Their port impressive and their wealth of ear, 

Mistaking for the world's assent the clang 

Of echoes mocking his accurst harangue; 

So the dull clown, untraveled though at large, 

Visits the city on the ocean's marge, 

Expands his eyes and marvels to remark 

Each coastwise schooner and each alien bark; 

Prates of " all nations," wonders as he stares 

That native merchants sell imported wares, 

Nor comprehends how in his very view 

A foreign vessel has a foreign crew ; 

Yet, faithful to the hamlet of his birth, 

Swears it superior to aught on earth, 

Sighs for the temples locally renowned — 

The village school-house and the village pound — 

And chalks upon the palaces of Rome 

The peasant sentiments of " Home, Sweet Home ! " 



A SOCIAL CALL. 395 



A SOCIAL CALL. 

Well, well, old Father Christmas, is it you, 

With your thick neck and thin pretense of virtue ? 

Less redness in the nose — nay, even some blue 
Would not, I think, particularly hurt you. 

When seen close to, not mounted in your car, 

You look the drunkard and the pig you are. 

No matter, sit you down, for I am not 

In a gray study, as you sometimes find me. 

Merry? O, no, nor wish to be, God wot, 
But there 's another year of pain behind me. 

That's something to be thankful for: the more 

There are behind, the fewer are before. 

I know you, Father Christmas, for a scamp, 
But Heaven endowed me at my soul's creation 

With an affinity to every tramp 

That walks the world and steals its admiration. 

For admiration is like linen left 

Upon the line — got easiest by theft. 



396 A SOCIAL CALL. 

Good God ! old man, just think of it ! I' ve stood, 
With brains and honesty, some five-and-twenty 

Long years as champion of all that 's good, 
And taken on the mazzard thwacks a-plenty. 

Yet now whose praises do the people bawl? 

Those of the fellows whom I live to maul! 

Why, this is odd ! — the more I try to talk 
Of you the more my tongue grows egotistic 

To prattle of myself ! I '11 try to balk 
Its waywardness and be more altruistic. 

So let us speak of others — how they sin, 

And what a devil of a state they 're in ! 

That 's all I have to say. Good-bye, old man. 

Next year you possibly may find me scolding — 
Or miss me altogether: Nature's plan 

Includes, as I suppose, a final folding 
Of these poor empty hands. Then drop a tear 
To think they '11 never box another ear. 



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